[Shadow_Group] Columbus Day marked by Indians' suicide 'epidemic'

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

  In Native country suicide is not always suicide. Here is another little
piece on Columbus Day.
Arthur J. Miller

>From the Colorado AIM Blog (http://www.coloradoaim.org/blog/<http://www.coloradoaim.org/blog/>). Check the
blog as well as the tcd site (http://www.transformcolumbusday.org<http://www.transformcolumbusday.org/>) for
other news coverage of the protest.

pavlos

Convoy of Conquest Protest makes the headlines on ISN Security Watch.
This is how the ISN describes their news watch section, which is located on
the front page of their website.

"The ISN's news services offer security related news stories, reference and
background information, and analyses every weekday. These resources are also
collected in subject-specific dossiers." ISN WEBSITE

Going to their homepage, one finds, at the top of the page, a section
entitled "Security Watch" with a subsection labelled "Top Stories"

Under "Top "Stories," there are a list of 8 headlines. Here are a few of the
headlines.
"Wave of violence continues in Pakistan"
"Explosion in Abkhazia fuels election confusion"
"Bosnian Serb war criminal 'surrenders' to Hague"
*Iraq rebels, US forces reach deal on Sadr City"

And coming in at Number 6 is this headline
"Native Americans protest Columbus Day"

Pretty interesting, eh?




>
> this report shows that indigenous suicide rates are proportional to the
> land seized by governments in the Americas.  Although its not mentioned in
> this news brief, an interview on the BBC talked about this interesting
> connection between peoples and their land. -j.
>
>
>
> http://www.survival-international.org/innu_041011.htm<http://www.survival-international.org/innu_041011.htm>
> Columbus Day marked by Indians' suicide 'epidemic'
>
> Indians in North and South America are killing themselves in record
> numbers as the continent marks Columbus Day (12th October). In one small
> Indian community in Canada, four young people have hanged themselves in
> the past three months alone. The former chief of the village, whose nephew
> hanged himself on the 30th September, has described the situation there as
> a suicide 'epidemic'.
>
> The deaths are occurring in the Innu community of Natuashish in Labrador,
> eastern Canada. Other Innu communities in Labrador and Quebec suffer from
> the same appalling social problems, with epidemics of petrol-sniffing
> amongst the children, and alcoholism amongst the adults. All ages have
> been committing suicide in shocking numbers for many years, but this is
> now at an all-time high.
>
> Five years ago Survival's report 'Canada's Tibet: the killing of the Innu'
> exposed the scale of the problem, and called on the Canadian government
> properly to recognize the Innu's rights over their land. But little has
> changed on the ground.
>
> At the other end of the continent in Brazil, the Guarani Indians are
> living through a similar tragedy. There, over 300 Indians have killed
> themselves since 1986, including 26 children under the age of 14. The
> tribe has been robbed of almost all its land.
>
> Stephen Corry, Survival's Director, said today, 'Responsibility for years
> of Innu suicides rests squarely with Canada's government. There is no
> doubt whatsoever that its denial of Innu rights is destroying the people.
> The Indians know this only too well. They also know that if white children
> were hanging themselves, rather than Indians, the government would act
> immediately. Canada's attitude remains deeply colonialist, even racist.
> The recent suicides sound an alarm that it's time for change, but Canada
> remains tragically deaf.'
>


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