Elisa Burchett: The Word is Out, No Dirty Gold
When the film “Our Life, Our Land” was completed in the fall of ’06, a film about Carrie and Mary Dann’s fight to protect their cattle and their land –Western Shoshone land - from gold mining companies like Barrick Gold Corporation, Julie Ann Fishel, the program director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) said they waited for a response from the United States. WSDP received a response two weeks ago. On the State Department’s website you can find a copy of their full periodic report to the CERD - the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The State Department attached an addendum, which was their response to the CERD’S decision on the Western Shoshone.
“Needless to say, they based their response almost entirely on their claim that the Shoshone people all want to be paid. So they’re expediting a process to distribute checks to individual Shoshone people to pay them off. And that’s what they (the State Department) told the CERD committee - that this will resolve all these land rights issues - and it works out to about FIFTEEN CENTS AN ACRE”, Julie Fishel told shocked audience members after the screening of “Our Life, Our Land” in the Dag Hammerskjold auditorium at the United Nations.
A major obstacle for the Western Shoshone in their fight against the gold mining industry is the general ignorance of American citizens about the policy decisions and oft-times personal interests of their state representatives, interests which the general public would not support if they were informed. In the case of Nevada, the Western Shoshone problem takes the form of Senator Harry Reid, a “Liberal” who happens to be a very big supporter of the mining industry and therefore not in favor of addressing Western Shoshone treaty rights and land rights. These facts, coupled with the struggle against the nuclear and military facilities out there, set the Western Shoshone up against the “big boys”, Ms. Fishel said. “So it’s going take a major movement to address this in the right way.” Right now there is a big push by the State Department to distribute this money (with individual offers of twenty thousand dollars) and the gold miners are getting involved now in an attempt to counter the progress the WSDP is making by way of their corporate engagements focusing on consumer relations.
To battle companies like the Barrick Gold Company, an organization has be established called “No Dirty Gold” to inform consumers about the consequences of buying gold. About 80 percent of the gold mined is used for jewelry, Carrie Dann told audience members. It would be in the interest of the American public to know that when they buy gold for there significant other or for themselves, that they have acquired that gift in exchange for someone else’s land and livelihood.
“Our Life, Our Land” has just won Best Feature Documentary in the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival and film maker George Gage stated that working with the Shoshone was one of the highlights of his life. “This film should be mandatory screening for every person in the United States. We’re just getting started with that. This film has been a very valuable tool to open some of our people’s eyes, too. It hit them like a ton of bricks and now they’re all believers.” It is the hope of WSDP, George and Beth Gage, along with the support of OXFAM, to use this film as part of their campaign strategy to build the overall Indigenous rights movement and to educate people, especially in the United States. “Our Life, Our Land” will be made in Spanish and English to be used with their Latin, Central and South American counterparts who are facing a lot of the same issues.
“We’ve been talking a lot with other Indigenous nations and the focal point is the ‘Document of Discovery’ and getting rid of that as the basis for federal Indian law and policy under the claim that Indigenous people have less human rights. There should be campaigns in the U.S. to vote for and adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as a starting point, as a good faith gesture for all the historical wrongs that have happened”, Ms. Fishel stated.
On the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the passage of which is being held up over questions about the definition or meaning of terms like “self-determination” and “autonomy”, Ms. Fishel clarified for audience members “This is not about a standard kind of settlement that the U.S. has historically conducted with Indigenous people. This is a movement coming from traditional people. So we’re talking about a resolution that’s going to take a form that has never happened in the U.S. because the United States historically has never addressed Indigenous people in terms of their rights. The U.S. has imposed upon them definitions and federal laws which are in fact old colonial laws that are still in place today. So there is going to need to be a real shift in consciousness.”
Learn more about this issue and join the “No Dirty Gold” international consumer campaign at http://www.nodirtygold.org
Elisa Burchett
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
Please also see:
Western Shoshone Film Screening at U.N.
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=3511&blz=1
The 13th Annual San Luis Obispo International Film Festival
http://www.slofilmfest.org/2007/index.shtml
Oxfam America: No Dirty Gold
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/campaigns/no_dirty_gold
Western Shoshone Defense Project http://www.wsdp.org
Please also see the Western Shoshone series in our Economics section.
When the film “Our Life, Our Land” was completed in the fall of ’06, a film about Carrie and Mary Dann’s fight to protect their cattle and their land –Western Shoshone land - from gold mining companies like Barrick Gold Corporation, Julie Ann Fishel, the program director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) said they waited for a response from the United States. WSDP received a response two weeks ago. On the State Department’s website you can find a copy of their full periodic report to the CERD - the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The State Department attached an addendum, which was their response to the CERD’S decision on the Western Shoshone.
“Needless to say, they based their response almost entirely on their claim that the Shoshone people all want to be paid. So they’re expediting a process to distribute checks to individual Shoshone people to pay them off. And that’s what they (the State Department) told the CERD committee - that this will resolve all these land rights issues - and it works out to about FIFTEEN CENTS AN ACRE”, Julie Fishel told shocked audience members after the screening of “Our Life, Our Land” in the Dag Hammerskjold auditorium at the United Nations.
A major obstacle for the Western Shoshone in their fight against the gold mining industry is the general ignorance of American citizens about the policy decisions and oft-times personal interests of their state representatives, interests which the general public would not support if they were informed. In the case of Nevada, the Western Shoshone problem takes the form of Senator Harry Reid, a “Liberal” who happens to be a very big supporter of the mining industry and therefore not in favor of addressing Western Shoshone treaty rights and land rights. These facts, coupled with the struggle against the nuclear and military facilities out there, set the Western Shoshone up against the “big boys”, Ms. Fishel said. “So it’s going take a major movement to address this in the right way.” Right now there is a big push by the State Department to distribute this money (with individual offers of twenty thousand dollars) and the gold miners are getting involved now in an attempt to counter the progress the WSDP is making by way of their corporate engagements focusing on consumer relations.
To battle companies like the Barrick Gold Company, an organization has be established called “No Dirty Gold” to inform consumers about the consequences of buying gold. About 80 percent of the gold mined is used for jewelry, Carrie Dann told audience members. It would be in the interest of the American public to know that when they buy gold for there significant other or for themselves, that they have acquired that gift in exchange for someone else’s land and livelihood.
“Our Life, Our Land” has just won Best Feature Documentary in the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival and film maker George Gage stated that working with the Shoshone was one of the highlights of his life. “This film should be mandatory screening for every person in the United States. We’re just getting started with that. This film has been a very valuable tool to open some of our people’s eyes, too. It hit them like a ton of bricks and now they’re all believers.” It is the hope of WSDP, George and Beth Gage, along with the support of OXFAM, to use this film as part of their campaign strategy to build the overall Indigenous rights movement and to educate people, especially in the United States. “Our Life, Our Land” will be made in Spanish and English to be used with their Latin, Central and South American counterparts who are facing a lot of the same issues.
“We’ve been talking a lot with other Indigenous nations and the focal point is the ‘Document of Discovery’ and getting rid of that as the basis for federal Indian law and policy under the claim that Indigenous people have less human rights. There should be campaigns in the U.S. to vote for and adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as a starting point, as a good faith gesture for all the historical wrongs that have happened”, Ms. Fishel stated.
On the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the passage of which is being held up over questions about the definition or meaning of terms like “self-determination” and “autonomy”, Ms. Fishel clarified for audience members “This is not about a standard kind of settlement that the U.S. has historically conducted with Indigenous people. This is a movement coming from traditional people. So we’re talking about a resolution that’s going to take a form that has never happened in the U.S. because the United States historically has never addressed Indigenous people in terms of their rights. The U.S. has imposed upon them definitions and federal laws which are in fact old colonial laws that are still in place today. So there is going to need to be a real shift in consciousness.”
Learn more about this issue and join the “No Dirty Gold” international consumer campaign at http://www.nodirtygold.org
Elisa Burchett
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
Please also see:
Western Shoshone Film Screening at U.N.
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=3511&blz=1
The 13th Annual San Luis Obispo International Film Festival
http://www.slofilmfest.org/2007/index.shtml
Oxfam America: No Dirty Gold
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/campaigns/no_dirty_gold
Western Shoshone Defense Project http://www.wsdp.org
Please also see the Western Shoshone series in our Economics section.