I am relaying the following question, which came in the form of a message
sent to me personally, since the answer stands to serve the needs of a
goodly number of people - those who would otherwise have no good source
of information on this subject. Please send replies directly to Stevienna.
Thanks. --Gary (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us) ]
I'm an American living in the Czech Republic, trying to keep up on affairs
back home by reading Wotanging Ikche and spending a lot of time on the net.
Yesterday, I was contacted by HOST, which is a Czech humanitarian
organisation based in Prague, about doing a piece on Leonard Peltier for
their magazine, Most ("most" means bridge in Czech). Most is devoted to
documenting racially motivated violence in the Czech Republic and abroad.
I'm very excited about this as it makes a nice change from haranguing deaf
ears. At the moment we are trying to interest the general press and several
more widely circulated magazines aimed at the english-speaking expatriate
community here (estimates reckon there are 40,000 Americans in Prague). HOST
is also willing to help circulate a petition in Czech, which we're going to
put together along with the one I'm creating for Americans and present it to
the American ambassador here. (If the embassy doesn't close again, that is!)
My reason for writing is this: I have the information on Peltier etc, but
I'd like to write the article from the perspective that the trouble at
Oglala was, in part, a smokescreen to the loss of part of Pine Ridge. One
of the things I want to get across, especially to Czech people who are not
remotely up on such issues is that this is absolutely political imprisonment
along the lines of Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel, and that the issues
Peltier and AIM were fighting for in the 70's have still not been resolved.
I'm on a deadline of mid-March. This is the information I'm looking for:
Present conditions on Pine Ridge reservation, especially with regard to
employment, life expectancy and average family income.
What has happened to that one-eighth of the reservation? Is it still in the
hands of the mining company, or has it been returned to the Oglala people?
If I am not mistaken, isn't there is an act being debated (or perhaps passed
by now) that seeks to permanently transfer Native lands to other hands if
the lands in question are not used for living purposes, i.e. if they are
under mining contract, etc. Doesn't this mean that the Nation is in danger
of losing these lands forever, if it hasn't already done so? If there is
such an act, I would like to mention it, as it sounds like one of the most
dangerous pieces of legislation that's come along in years.
I'd be pleased to hear from anyone who has this sort of information, or
wants to communicate what it's like to live on Pine Ridge. I can be
contacted by e-mail at nemecm@mbox.vol.cz, or by regular mail as: Stevienna
de Saille, Biskupcova 24, 130 00 Praha 3, Czech Republic.
This article will appear in Prague in both Czech and English just before the
petitions go out. In this part of the world, which is at the moment engaged
in grabbing everything American without question, I think it is very
important to show in no uncertain terms that America also has a continuing
history of silencing and imprisoning its dissidents.
I'm sorry to ask you to do research for me, but it's so hard to get any kind
of reasonably accurate information over here.
Miigwetch
Stevienna de Saille