Las Vegas-- On Monday, October 5th 500 participants from the
Healing Global Wounds Indigenous Peoples Forum marched down
the Las Vegas Strip to the Department of Energy to present the
findings of the weekend long Forum.
The findings were presented to the Department of Energy following
a rally with speeches by Senator Anjain, of the Marshall Islands,
Bayan Orumbaeva, of Kazakhstahn, Dr. E.J. Sternglass,of the Hanford
Study, and William Rosse Sr., the Environmental Protection Officer
for the Western Shoshone National Council.
The Rally opened with a song from the Peacekeeper Drum, followed
by a Prayer led by Western Shoshone Spiritual Leader Corbin Harney.
Senator Anjain then told us and the DOE : "For Indigenous People
Our Land is Everything, It connects us to the Great Spirit, to our
ancestors, to each other. Without our land, we are no one-- as a
people or as individuals. Thus, the radioactive contamination of
indigenous peoples land is but the indirect killing of people."
William Rosse Sr. then told the crowd that the "Nevada Test Site
is on Shoshone Land and that all the test sites worldwide are on
indigenous peoples lands" he went on to say that "I have been reading
in the paper about how many people will lose their jobs if testing
stops, Nobody should be laid off they should be retrained to clean
the mess up!"
The rally was followed by a mass die-in, then a slow drumbeat
resurrected the crowd for their 4 day 65 mile walk to the Nevada
Test Site. The walk is presently 300 strong. thousands are expected
to join them at the Test Site this weekend for rally's and mass actions
aimed at ending 500 Years of Injustice to Native Americans and Stopping
Nuclear testing on Native Lands.
For more information go to HGW.action