[Indigsol] IPSMO Newsletter, Nov. 30 to Dec. 6

Mon Nov 30 04:21:39 PST 2009

----------------
IPSMO Newsletter
----------------

--------------------------
Meetings, Events, Articles
--------------------------

============================================================================
The Indigenous Peoples’ Solidarity Movement of Ottawa acknowledges that
the city of Ottawa exists on stolen Omàmìwinini (Algonquin) land.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

IPSMO is a grassroots organization that directly supports indigenous
peoples in diverse struggles for justice. We also work within communities
to challenge the lies and half-truths about indigenous peoples and
colonization that dominate Canadian society. The organization is open to
both indigenous and non-indigenous people, and focuses on local and
regional campaigns.
============================================================================

----------------------------
Newsletter Table of Contents
----------------------------
============================================================================
1)	IPSM Ottawa Updates

a)	Changes and new information about Barriere Lake, Native Women and
        Two-Spirited People’s Struggles on our website
b)	New video: Remembering Residential Schools

============================================================================
2)      Events

a)	Decolonial Study Group, Sunday, Dec. 13 at 1pm
b)	Movie Screening: H2Oil, Monday, Oct. 30

============================================================================
3)      Solidarity with Six Nations!

a)      Three years after the land reclamation, the struggle goes on

============================================================================
4)      Articles

a)      Harry and the Akwesasne People's Fire
b)      B.C. First Nation approves private property rights
c)      Child Welfare - Native Kids
d)      Youth centre march coming weekly?
e)      In our hands

============================================================================
5)	Announcements

a)      Wake Up Call to Canada! Stop Violence Against Indigenous Women

============================================================================

----------
Newsletter
----------

============================================================================
1) Updates

a) Changes and new information about Barriere Lake, Native Women and
   Two-Spirited People’s Struggles on our website

- Barriere Lake:
http://ipsmo.wordpress.com/barriere-lake/

- Native Women’s Struggles:
http://ipsmo.wordpress.com/native-womens-struggles/

- Two-Spirited People’s Struggles:
http://ipsmo.wordpress.com/two-spirited-peoples/

============================================================================
b) Remembering Residential Schools

http://blip.tv/file/2906317

Oct. 24 to Oct. 31st of 2009 were Indigenous Sovereignty Week in Ottawa. 
Remembering Residential Schools was the event that happened on Sunday, 
Oct. 25.

This video includes:

- Opening Ceremony: Elder Irene Lindsay
- Context and History of Residential Schools: Jackie Miller (Aboriginal
  Healing Foundation)
- Stories from Residential School Survivors / Elders: Thomas Louttit,
  Gordon Williams, and Viola Thomas

http://blip.tv/file/2906317

============================================================================

2) Events

a) Decolonial Study Group, Sunday, Dec. 13 at 1pm

Decolonial Study Group
Sunday, Dec. 13 at 1pm
Exile Infoshop
256 Bank St. (2nd Floor)
Sorry this location is not wheelchair accessible
Everyone Welcome!
ipsmo at riseup.net
http://www.ipsmo.org

The reading for the study group on Sunday, Dec. 13 will focus on treaties
between the Mi'kmaq and the British Crown, and on the recognition of
Mi'kmaq treaty rights in the Marshall decision.

The Decolonial Study Group is a new project of the IPSM Ottawa. We will be
deepening and broadening our understanding and analysis of indigenous
struggles for decolonization, social justice and revolution. We will be
doing this through readings, workshops, oral presentations, movies and so
on.

For this study group there will be core articles which we ask everyone to
read, as well as additional articles and information for people who have
the time and the interest to get deeper into the subject matter. And
everyone is welcome whether they've done the readings or not!

Core reading:

Treaty of 1752: http://mikmawey.uccb.ns.ca/treatyfour.html
Treaties of 1760 and 1761: http://mikmawey.uccb.ns.ca/treatytwo.html

Injustice? Duress and the Burnt Church First Nation Fisheries Agreement
with Canada by Kwegsi:
http://www.turtleisland.org/news/news-onemans-kwegsi.htm

Modern Day Treaty: Self-Assimilation by Kwegsi:
http://www.shunpiking.com/ol0111/assimilation.htm

Breathing New Life into Treaties: History, Politics, the Law, and
Aboriginal Grievances in Canada's Maritime Provinces by Ken Coates:
http://0-www.jstor.org.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/stable/3744839?&Search=yes&term=new&term=life&term=treaties&term=breathing&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbreathing%2Bnew%2Blife%2Binto%2Btreaties%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dbreating%2Bnew%2Blife%2Binto%2Btreaties%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=1&ttl=647&returnArticleService=showArticle

Additional reading:

Supreme Court of Canada (Marshall Decision):
http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1999/1999scr3-456/1999scr3-456.html

Marshall and Bernard: Treaty Rights and a Treaty Table:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7000/is_55/ai_n28428950/

The Mi'kmaq and The Right to Self-Determination by James Sakej Ward:
http://web.uvic.ca/igov/research/journal/pdf/The%20Mi%27kmaq%20And%20The%20Right%20To%20Self%20Determination%20.pdf

>From Regulation to Recolonization: Justifiable Infringement of Aboriginal
Rights at the supreme Court of Canada by Lisa Dufraimont:
http://www.heinonline.org.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/utflr58&id=1&size=2&collection=journals&index=journals/utflr

United We Fish by Martha Stiegman:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6685/is_4_29/ai_n29039300/?tag=content;col1

Books:

We Were Not the Savages by Daniel N. Paul
The Marshall Decision and Native Rights by Ken Coates

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
b) H2Oil premieres in Ottawa! Monday Nov. 30, @ 7pm

H2Oil premieres in Ottawa! Monday Nov. 30, @ 7pm

In the countdown to the Copenhagen negotiations, international pressure is
building to discourage further expansion of Canada's tar sands, and....

H2Oil premieres in Ottawa!

When: Friday November 27 - Monday November 30, 2009 @ 7pm

Where: Mayfair Theatre, 1074 Bank Street (just south of the Glebe)

Canada has become the biggest oil supplier to the United States, is
impeding international efforts to recognize the urgency of the global
climate crisis and is ripping apart pristine forests on unceded Indigenous
territory. With the controversial developments of the Athabasca tar sands,
multinational corporations are moving into Alberta to extract crude oil
from the tarry bitumen sands using a process so toxic it has become an
international cause for concern. Four barrels of glacier-fed spring water
are used to process each barrel of oil, then are dumped, laden with
carcinogens, into leaky tailings ponds so huge they can be seen from
space. Downstream, the people of Fort Chipewyan are already paying the
price for what will be one of the largest industrial projects in history.

When a local doctor raises the alarm about clusters of rare cancers,
evidence mounts for industry and government cover-ups. In a time when wars
are fought over oil and a crisis looms over access to clean fresh water,
which resource is more precious? And what price are we willing to pay?

Come to the Ottawa premiere of the film H2Oil screening from November 27th
until November 30th at the Mayfair Theatre! A photo exhibit will be
featured in the theatre demonstrating the toxic trail of tar sands from
the pits of Alberta to the proposed pipelines in Northern British Colombia
and refineries in the Great Lakes Region. On November 29th, Clayton
Thomas- Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network will be in
attendance to answer audience questions. Community supporters include:
Indigenous Environmental Network, Indigenous Peoples Solidarity
Movement-Ottawa, OPIRG/GRIPO-Ottawa, OPIRG-Carleton, the Public Service
Alliance of Canada, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Polaris
Institute.

For more information:
www.tarsandswatch.org
www.ienearth.org/cits.html
www.yourvotetheirfuture.ca

Not in Ottawa? Upcoming  screenings of H2Oil scheduled soon in Montreal
and Vancouver!  http://www.h2oil.com/

NFB.CA: THE ONLINE SCREENING ROOM
 *Finding Dawn*, a doc about violence against Aboriginal women, featured
this week at NFB.ca <http://www.nfb.ca/film/finding_dawn/?ec=en20091125>

In honour of the *International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against
Women* on November 25, we’ll be featuring *Finding
Dawn*<http://www.nfb.ca/film/finding_dawn/?ec=en20091125>,
a documentary that calls into question the murders and disappearances of
over 500 Aboriginal women in Canada over the past 30 years.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
c) Upping The Anti #9 launch (and Seattle ten year anniversary party)

Upping The Anti #9 launch
(and Seattle ten year anniversary party)
Monday, Oct. 30 at 6pm
Montgomery Legion Hall, 330 Kent St

Le Collectif du Chat Noir cordially invites you!

On November 30th 2009 the anti capitalist movement will be celebrating the
ten year anniversary of the historic "Battle of Seattle"! and what better
way to do this than a Monday night filled with friends, your favorite
journal and a screening of the awesome (and, uh...100% accurate) movie
Battle of Seattle, starring Woody Harrelson as a COP!

we will also be taking the opportunity to officially launch our
mobilization against the G8!

***6:00 - doors
***6:30 - a look back on the last ten years, and a look ahead at the
upcoming anti-G8 mobilization
***7:00 - movie magic
***9:30 - go home

lecollectifduchatnoir at gmail.com

+ let us know if you would like child care at this event

============================================================================
3) Solidarity with Six Nations!

a) Three years after the land reclamation, the struggle goes on

The Struggle in Six Nations goes on...

1. CTV coverage of non-native solidarity rally held on Oct 7. in
Brantford, Ontario:
http://www.southwesternontario.ctv.ca/news.php?id=6161

2. Rally footage on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8ADC4B4279FB461E [click on "Play
All Videos" to play all 13 parts

3. Link to Rex Murphy's "insights." (reason why non-native support is so
important):

http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/rexmurphy/story/2009/11/19/national-rexmurphy-091119.html

============================================================================

4) Articles

a) Harry and the Akwesasne People's Fire

http://akwesasnecounterspin.wordpress.com/

With his CBSA helmet and raingear, honorary firekeeper “Harry” watches
over the Akwesasne People’s Fire on Kahwenoke (‘Cornwall Island’). The
fire has been burning at the main crossroads since May 1, 2009 and now,
nearly six months later, a building constructed by community members so
that elders and others may stay warm over the winter is nearly complete.

The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) building, abandoned since June
1st, looms in the background. CBSA abandoned the post within the Akwesasne
Mohawk reserve when residents announced their rejection of the Canadian
government’s plan to arm the CBSA agents on June 1st. Police shut down the
international Seaway bridges and border crossing just minutes before
midnight June 1st, as hundreds of Mohawk residents gathered to protest the
imminent arming of CBSA agents within their territory.

The bridge and border crossing were re-opened in mid-July, when CBSA set
up a makeshift post at the foot of the bridge over in the city of
Cornwall, Ontario. After decades of racial profiling and harassment,
Akwesasne residents have now been facing heavy fines and vehicle seizures
by CBSA if after crossing into New York they do not immediately drive
straight through the island and get in the often lengthy one lane line-up
on the bridge to report to CBSA. Island residents are also obligated to
wait in the line and go through Canadian customs even when only traveling
from Kahwenoke into Cornwall for groceries, appointments, or to pick up
their children from high school.

Some Akwesasne residents are avoiding Cornwall altogether. Some report to
CBSA. Some do not. Many have faced stiff fines and vehicle seizures.
Several Akwesasne residents have also been subject to harassment,
arbitrary detentions, and criminal charges at the CBSA post in Cornwall.

Higher-ranking federal government officials have largely remained silent
despite the ongoing conflict and human rights abuses, while CBSA
negotiators walked out of the last [court-ordered!] meeting with Mohawk
Council of Akwesasne representatives, alledging that they had not agreed
to the presence of a MCA lawyer at the table. A meeting concerning ongoing
harassment and vehicle seizures has been scheduled for December.

Meanwhile, community residents continue to prepare for winter and finish
the new building, installing the insulation. Dinner is a community
gathering almost every evening. And the Akwesasne People’s Fire still
burns.

Harry watches it all in silence.

- Sandra Cuffe

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
b) B.C. First Nation approves private property rights

B.C. First Nation approves private property rights

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/11/18/bc-nisga-a-land-reform-property-rights.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
c) Child Welfare - Native Kids

Two decades ago, Canada signed on to the United Nations Convention for the
Rights of the Child. It acknowledged that all children have the right to
be safe and protected from harm, cared for, nurtured, and heard.

It's a commitment to children that critics say Canada has ignored.
Their case in point. One in ten Canadian children live in poverty and a
lot of those children live on reserves. And it's being alleged that those
kids do not have the same access to health care, education and other
services as children living off reserves.

The Assembly of First Nations and the First Nations Child and Family
Caring Society have filed a human rights complaint, saying this is blatant
discrimination. A tribunal had been scheduled to begin hearings into the
complaint last week. But those hearings have now been postponed until
January 18th, a delay that further frustrates those making the complaint.

Cindy Blackstock is one of them. She is the Executive Director of the
First Nations Child and Family Caring Society http://www.fnwitness.ca/>.
She is to be awarded the Economic Justice
Fellowship<http://www.atkinsonfoundation.ca/updates/Document_1258898308024>

Today from The Atkinson Charitable Foundation. She was in Montreal. And
Carolyn Buffalo is Chief of the Montana Cree
Nation<http://www.montanafirstnation.com/about.html> in
Hobbema, Alberta and mother of Noah.

We invited Chuck Strahl, the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs
Canada and Janis Tarchuk, Alberta's Minister of Children and Youth
Services to appear on the program. They both declined our invitation.

We also invited federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq but received no
response. Ottawa has responded to the Human Rights complaint by arguing
the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to hear the matter because the
federal government is the funder of the services and not the provider. The
government will be in Federal Court in January to try and stop the
Tribunal.

-----

*Aboriginal-Rights Champion Cindy Blackstock Awarded Atkinson Fellowship
*
TORONTO, Nov. 23 /CNW/ - Cindy Blackstock has been awarded the Atkinson
Foundation's Economic Justice Fellowship. The three-year Fellowship will
provide $100,000 annually for Ms. Blackstock's advocacy on behalf of First
Nations children and communities.

"With every generation comes an opportunity to create a better world. But
First Nations children are debilitated by funding inequalities in
education and child welfare. We can correct past mistakes by giving this
generation a real opportunity to understand their place in the world
differently and to succeed," said Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of
the First Nations child and Family Service Caring Society of Canada.

Ms. Blackstock is one of Canada's leading and most passionate
spokespersons for the promotion and strengthening of First Nations
cultures, knowledge and rights. A member of the Gitksan First Nation, she
has worked in the field of child and family services for over 20 years.

"The foundation was inspired by Cindy Blackstock's authoritative,
passionate and relentless pursuit of justice for First Nations. We believe
that our support will go a long way towards educating ordinary Canadians,
decision makers and influencers, on the importance of these issues and the
possibility for change," said Peter Armstrong, President of the Board of
Trustees of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation.

The announcement took place during the launch of a new photography
exhibition entitled "Caring Across Boundaries." Curated by Ms. Blackstock,
with photographs by Liam Sharp, it documents the hopes and dreams of three
First Nations communities and runs at First Canadian Place in Toronto
November 23-27.

"This Fellowship addresses issues of utmost importance not only to First
Nations, but to all of us as compassionate Canadians, as Canadians
committed to justice, and as Canadians who understand the critical role of
Aboriginal people to our future prosperity. It's time to turn a page and
commit to a better future for everyone," said Charles Pascal, Executive
Director of the Atkinson Foundation.

Fellowships support social change leaders to think and act for a more just
future for all Canadians. Previous winners include progressive economist
Armine Yalnizyan, former premier Roy Romanow, housing activistCathy Crowe,
and immigrant rights advocate Uzma Shakir.

The Atkinson Charitable Foundation, a private Canadian foundation
established in 1942, seeks to promote social and economic justice in the
tradition of its founder, former Star Publisher Joseph E. Atkinson.

For further information: Pedro Barata, Atkinson Foundation, (416) 302-7524

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
d) Youth centre march coming weekly?

Youth centre march coming weekly?
Six Nations police escort abandons youth when they protest new station

By Jessica Smith

Six Nations police officers were ordered to stop escorting youth marching
down Chiefswood Road and then up Fourth line here Sunday when the deputy
police chief learned the youth were protesting the building of a new
police station over a youth centre.

"We just weren't prepared to have them protest the police station," said
Deputy police chief Rocky Smith.

The march was to draw support for the building of a youth centre in the
community. But Smith took issue with protesters assertion that the
community leaders should have prioritized building a youth centre over
building a new police station. "The community is not building a new police
station," he said. "The Six Nations police are." "There's no question we
need a youth centre as well," he added. Calling off the escort endangered
the group of marchers, which included young children.
Editorial: Six Nations police are not a political force

What was deputy police chief Rocky Smith thinking when he decided to jump
into a political storm by exercising his authority as deputy police chief
to pull a police escort of a youth march, because the youth were
protesting the building of a police station over a youth centre. What
could possibly have gone on in his head to think that he has the authority
to turn the operations of the police force into a political goon squad.
There is absolutely nothing more important in this community, or any
other, than the independence of its police force. It is suppose to be
above political influence and certainly does not exist at the whim of a
political body that would turn it from a police force to an army. Deputy
Chief Rocky Smith’s political decision to pull the police escort because
the youth were protesting the police building requires an apology from the
police management to the youth. Smith was out of bounds and his decision
placed the youth at risk.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e) In our hands

Go to original:

http://www.newint.org/features/2009/12/01/keynote-copenhagen/

NEW INTERNATIONALIST <http://www.newint.org/>

As we hurtle towards the Copenhagen climate talks this December, the
rhetoric is reaching fever pitch. Copenhagen is ‘the world’s last chance to
stop climate change before it passes the point of no return,’ warns Stavros
Dimas, EU Environment Commissioner. ‘There is no Plan B,’ mutters British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, darkly. This is ‘the most important meeting of
our lives,’ agrees the Global Campaign for Climate Action, an international
NGO coalition. ‘Failure is not an option,’ chimes in Nick Robins, head of
Climate Change at HSBC bank.

Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Copenhagen, where politicians, bankers
and corporations compete for the best campaign slogans, Coca-Cola entreats
the world to sign its ‘Hopenhagen’ petition, while Shell sponsors glossy
magazine pull-outs reminding us we only have ‘10 days to save the world’.

Don’t be dazzled by this extraordinary show. The idea that the UN’s ‘COP 15’
Climate Summit – where governments will attempt to negotiate a climate
change treaty to see us through the next few decades – is our ‘last chance’
is a very dangerous one indeed.

*Bad deal*

It’s dangerous for several reasons. For a start, it’s not true. If it were,
then quite frankly we’d all be screwed, because there’s no way that any deal
that comes out of Copenhagen will effectively curb global warming.

Firstly, recent scientific observations of the rate of ocean acidification,
the thawing of permafrost and the melting of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic
confirm that the climate is changing faster than the UN’s global gang of
scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, had predicted.
Indigenous people living in the Arctic and in low-lying islands in the
Pacific are already experiencing devastating impacts.

But the climate talks haven’t caught up with reality.

We now know that to have a good chance of preventing runaway climate change,
global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2015. Industrialized
countries must cut their emissions dramatically, year-on-year, by more than
40 per cent by 2020 and over 95 per cent by 2050.1 But this isn’t on the
table. And even the inadequate targets that *are *being discussed look
unlikely to be agreed to by major polluters such as the US and Canada,
forcing negotiators to admit that they are only likely to get a ‘political
agreement’ out of the summit, not a full-blown treaty.

Secondly, in order for Majority World countries to deal with the impacts of
climate change and pursue their right to develop along a low carbon route,
they need a serious amount of money. It’s a deal-breaker for them. Rich
countries have agreed, in theory, to provide it. In practice, they are
saying they can’t afford to, having blown all their spare cash on bank
bailouts and wars.

Thirdly, there’s a reason why the business world is so enthusiastically
trumpeting the need for a deal at Copenhagen. It’s because it’s
*their*deal. Even if by some miracle industrialized countries do sign
up to deep
emissions cuts, the plan is to deliver a large slice of them via carbon
markets. The market-based mechanisms that have been placed at the heart of
the proposed treaty by unrelenting corporate lobbying allow major polluters
to ‘offset’ their emissions rather than reduce them, and generate massive
profits along the way. Carbon markets aren’t actually reducing emissions,
unfortunately – as even Deutsche Bank has recently admitted. But that detail
doesn’t appear to be important at the UN, because any deal at Copenhagen is
set to revolve around them.

The idea that Copenhagen is our last chance is dangerous for another reason:
it assumes that the current UN process is the only possible path towards
global emissions reductions. It isn’t.

Currently, the negotiations resemble not so much a paragon of selfless
co-operation as the brutal wrestling match so deftly depicted by cartoonist
Marc Roberts (see page 6). Things at the UN are little different from the
World Trade Organization these days: rich élites band together to protect
their interests and make sure the little guys don’t get a look in.
Corporations set the agenda (see Oscar Reyes, page 16) and those most
affected by climate change – poor people, indigenous people, small farmers –
are firmly excluded.

The concept of ‘climate justice’ so eloquently articulated by a swelling
grassroots movement is utterly absent. In the UN, we are not hearing serious
discussions about how we shift the global economy away from the fallacy of
infinite economic growth on a finite planet; or how we ensure that the rich
curb their consumption levels and pay their vast ecological debt to the
Global South; or how we can leave fossil fuels in the ground and roll out
the low-impact alternatives that we know to work. Instead, it’s
capitalism-as-usual with a veneer of green: ‘cleaner coal’, nuclear power,
attractive investment opportunities in ‘avoided deforestation credits’ and,
if all else fails, filling the oceans with pollution-munching algae.

And yet too many larger NGOs are playing along with this. Why? Well, some
are quite openly working hand-in-hand with carbon traders and the fossil
fuel industry. Others are well intentioned but naïve. According to Mike
Childs, Head of Campaigns at Friends of the Earth UK: ‘They’ve got
themselves into a difficult position. A lot of NGOs have staked a lot of
time in getting an agreement, and they need to demonstrate to their
supporters and funders that they have achieved success – even if what we’ve
actually got is a shoddy deal that isn’t scientifically robust and won’t
solve the justice issues. There’s a real risk that the world might then
think, “great, we’ve got an agreement, the climate’s sorted”, rather than
keeping up the political pressure.’

*Beyond Copenhagen*

This is, of course, a desperate state of affairs. There needs to be
*some*international co-operation and co-ordination if collectively
we’re going to
reduce our emissions to a safe level in the very short time that remains.
And financing for the Majority World to deal with the effects of climate
change and develop without depending on fossil fuels must materialize. But
any kind of international effort will need to look very different from
what’s on the table at Copenhagen.

So what is to be done?

One strategy being discussed by African civil society and government
delegates is to turn Copenhagen into another ‘Seattle’. Dennis Brutus,
venerable South African poet and activist, explains: ‘African Union insiders
would work with massed protest outside to prevent the North from doing a
deal in their own interests, against Africa’s and the planet’s. A decade
ago, that formula stopped the World Trade Organization’s Millennium Round
from succeeding in Seattle.’

It could happen. African delegates have already walked out *en masse* from
the final UN preparatory meeting in Barcelona, and activists are gearing up
for street protests that could rival those at Seattle (see page 19).

Meanwhile, grassroots social movements are already looking beyond
Copenhagen. Clayton Thomas-Muller, a member of the Mathais Colomb Cree
Nation in Canada, is a campaigner with the Indigenous Environmental Network,
and has been closely involved in Climate Summit discussions.

‘Because it’s clear that the political will just doesn’t exist, either in
the UN or at national government level, the global climate justice movement
is re-evaluating its strategy and upping the stakes. If laws become unjust,
it is our responsibility to challenge and change them. We need to
consolidate people power in the face of this concentration of corporate
power, and we need social movements to embrace more direct forms of action
to push for the world we want to see.’

We don’t have time. We need to stop emissions at their source now...

In some parts of the world, grassroots social movements are already
succeeding where governments have so spectacularly failed. In the US and
Britain there is now a *de facto* moratorium on new coal-fired power
stations: not because of any change in policy, but because a combination of
public campaigning and concerted direct action has made it impossible for
any company to build one.

In Peru and Ecuador, indigenous communities are mobilizing to resist the
expansion of oil and mining companies. In Canada, there has been a spate of
direct actions against oil extraction from Alberta’s tar sands – widely
accused of being the most destructive development in the world. In
Australia, the coal industry is being repeatedly targeted, with coal trains,
mines and power stations all recently disrupted by activists.

All these movements recognize that we don’t have time to wait for
international agreements to be painstakingly negotiated over many years,
then wait some more for them to be ratified, then cross our fingers and hope
that governments will actually stick to the targets they’ve signed up to.

We don’t have time. We need to stop emissions at their source now, take
action locally to build the alternatives, and create such strong national
movements for climate justice that politicians are forced to follow suit.

*Making history*

The most important meeting in Copenhagen will take place *outside* the
conference centre. It will take place at the civil society summit, where the
world’s climate justice movements will come together as never before to
strategize and make plans. It will take place in front of lines of riot cops
as indigenous people, peasants, the young and the old take action together
and build relationships of solidarity that will bear fruit long after the
tear gas has floated away. It will also take place in cities across the
world as hundreds of thousands mobilize in hope, only to be let down by
their leaders – and radicalized in the process.

Copenhagen *is* the last chance – for the bloated and corrupt UN circus to
deliver genuine action on climate change. When it fails, it will be time for
the rest of us to take over.

============================================================================
5)	Announcements

a) Wake Up Call to Canada! Stop Violence Against Indigenous Women

“The committee
recommends that [Canada] develop a specific and integrated
plan for addressing the particular conditions affecting Aboriginal
women
including poverty, poor health, inadequate housing, low
school-completion rates, low employment rates, low income and high rates
of violence.”  United Nations Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women, November 2008.

On November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence
Against Women, set your alarm clock a couple minutes early so that you can
send the government of Canada an urgently needed wake-up call.

Amnesty International is calling on people in every region of the world to
start their day on November 25th by sending an email to Canadian Prime
Minister Stephen Harper asking his government to take immediate action to
address the high levels of violence faced by Indigenous women in Canada.

According to a government statistic, young Indigenous women in Canada are
five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the
result of violence. The Sisters in Spirit Initiative of the Native Women’s
Association of Canada has documented more than 520 cases of missing and
murdered Indigenous women in Canada, most within the last three decades.
Because of gaps in police and government reporting, the actual numbers may
be much higher.

The Canadian government has condemned the violence and promised to take
action. However, efforts to date have fallen far short of the response
needed to address such serious and pervasive human rights violations.

Indigenous women's organizations and international human rights bodies
have called on Canada to adopt a comprehensive, coordinated plan of action
to stop violence against Indigenous women and address the marginalization
and discrimination that contribute to this violence. There's no excuse for
delay.

Join the Wake Up Call to Canada online at:
http://www.amnesty.ca/wakeupcanada
https://www.amnistie.ca/outils/actions/index.php?ActionID=23
http://alzatuvoz.org/m2009/

-- 
Check out IPSMO's Videos:

http://ipsmo.wordpress.com/video-archives/

IPSMO's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=120142932547&ref=ts