Subject: We are at the Crossroads! www.worldpeaceday.com    September 15, 2001

Mitakuye (my relative),

I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Nation, would like to ask for this time for you to understand an Indigenous perspective in reflection of what has happened in America, what we call “Turtle Island”.  
For the past six years, my work has concentrated on an effort on uniting the Global community, through a message from our sacred ceremonies in recognizing a day of World Peace and Prayer on June 21st as a time to unite spiritually, each in our own ways of beliefs in the Creator.  We have been warned from the messages, passed down from Ancient Prophecies of these times we live in today, but also a very important message of a solution to turn these terrible times around.
To assist you in understanding the depth of this message involves the recognition in the importance of Sacred Sites.  It is important that you realize the whole interconnectedness of what is happening today, in reflection of the continued massacres that are occurring on other lands and our own Americas.  I have been learning about these important issues of Sacred Sites since the age of 12, upon receiving the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle and it’s teachings.  Our people have strived to protect Sacred Sites from the beginning of time. There needs to be an understanding in the concern of the protection of Sacred Sites that goes deeper than just the issue of Shrines built by humans.  Our people have built similar objects and Shrines to identify and to remind the significance in the power of the Sacred Site.  We have also witnessed them being destroyed for many decades, but we also realize it is what is underneath them that is important. These places have been violated for centuries and have brought us to this predicament that we are in concerning the unstable Global Level thus far.  
Look around you, our Mother Earth is very ill from these violations and we are at a brink of destroying a healthy and nurturing survival for generations to come, our children’s children.
Our ancestors have been trying to protect our Sacred Site from the continued violations called the Sacred Black Hills in SD, “Heart of Everything that is”.  Our ancestors never seen this site from a Satellite view, but now that those pictures are available with modern technology, we see that it is in the shape of a heart and when fast forwarded it looks like a heart pumping. The Dine have been protecting Big Mountain, calling it the liver and now that the coal is depleting, we are suffering and going to suffer more from the extraction of the coal and poison processes used in doing so.  The Aborigines has warned of the contaminating effects on the Corral Reefs from Global Warming, which they see as Mother Earth’s blood purifier, our sacred water is being polluted.  The Indigenous people of the Rain Forest relay that the Rain Forest are the lungs and need protection and now we see the Brazilian Government approved the depletion of 50% of this Sacred Site.  The Gwich’in Nation has an issue of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, also known to the Gwich’in as ‘Where the life begins!’  The coastal plain is also the birthplace of many other life forms of Animal Nations.  The death of these Animal Nations will destroy Indigenous Nations in this territory.  As these destructive developments continue all over the world, we will witness many more extinct Animal, Plant and Human Nations, because of the misuse of power that mankind has made and their lack of understanding the “balance of life”.  The Indigenous people warn that these destructive developments will cause havoc globally.  There are many, many more Indigenous awareness’s and knowledge of Mother Earth’s Sacred Sites, connections  (Mother Earth’s Charkas) to our spirit that will surely affect our future generations.  These people are still suffering from this contamination and their livelihood is being destroyed as I write this to you.  There needs to be a fast move toward other forms of energy that are safe for all Nations upon Mother Earth.   We need to understand the whole picture in the type of minds that are continuing to destroy the spirit of our whole Global Community. Unless we do this, the powers of destruction will overwhelm us. Our Ancestors foretold that water would someday be for sale.  Back then this was hard to believe, since the water was so plentiful, so pure, and so full of energy, nutrition and spirit.  Today we have to buy pure water, and even then the nutritional minerals have been taken out; it’s just empty liquid.  Someday water will be like gold, too expensive to afford.  Not everyone will have the right to drink safe water.  We fail to appreciate and honor our Sacred Sites, ripping out the minerals and gifts that lay underneath them, as if Mother Earth were simply a resource, instead of the Source of Life itself.
Attacking Nations and having to utilize more resources to carry out the destruction in the name of Peace and elimination is not the answer!  We need to understand how all these decisions affects the Global Nation, we will not be immune to it’s repercussions.  To allow continual contamination of our food and land, is now affecting the way we think.  A “disease of the mind” has set in World Leaders and many members of our Global Community, with their understanding that a solution of retaliation and destruction of peoples will bring Peace.
In our Prophecies it is told that we are now at the Crossroads, either unite Spiritually as a Global Nation, or be faced with chaos, disasters, diseases and tears from our relatives eyes.
In times of disasters it is sad to say that it is the only time that we unite spiritually, but we must not taint it with anger and retaliation. We are the only species that is destroying the Source of life, meaning Mother Earth, in the name of power, mineral resources and ownership of land, using methods of chemicals and warfare that is becoming irreversible, as Mother Earth is becoming tired and can not sustain any more impacts of war.
I ask you to join me on this endeavor. Our vision is for the Peoples of all continents, regardless of their beliefs in the Creator, to come together as one at their Sacred Sites at that sacred moment of what is known as the Summer Solstice of June 21st, to pray and meditate and commune with one another, thus promoting an energy shift to heal our Mother Earth and achieve a universal consciousness toward attaining Peace.  As each day passes bringing us to this day of concentration together, I ask the Global Nations to begin a Global effort, in knowing that each and every one of us are making a daily effort in waking to a gratitude of another day, that is gifted to us and begin to remember to give thanks for the Sacred Food that has been also gifted to us by our Mother Earth, so the nutritional energy of medicine can be guided to heal our minds and spirits.
This new millennium will usher in an age of harmony or it will bring the end of life as we know it.  Starvation, war and toxic waste have been the hallmark of the Great Myth of Progress and Development that ruled the last millennium.  To us, as caretakers of the heart of Mother Earth, falls the responsibility of turning back the powers of destruction. We have come to a time and place of great urgency.  The fate of future generations rests in our hands. We must understand the two ways we are free to follow, as we choose—the positive way or the negative way…the spiritual way or the material way.  It’s our own choice--each of ours and all of ours.
You yourself are the one who must decide.  You alone—and only you--can make this crucial choice.  Whatever you decide is what you’ll be, to walk in honor or to dishonor your relatives.  You can’t escape the consequences of your own decision.  On your decision depends the fate of the entire World.
You must decide.  You can’t avoid it.  Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind.  Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger?  Know that you yourself are essential to this World.  Believe that!  
Understand both the blessing and the burden of that.  You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this World. Did you think you were put here for something less?
In a Sacred Hoop of Life, where there is no beginning and no ending!

Mitakuye Oyasin,

Chief Arvol Looking Horse
19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe
 

DEVASTATING NEWS, FOLKS! 

Please forward this message to all of your groups for their support as well. 

Please, we need your help more than ever now!So many of you have been so wonderful to help this cause, write letters, attend meetings, and watch over the Lenape land in Vernon known as the  Black Creek Site. We cannot quit. We need team effort more than ever now! The Vernon Township Council shockingly voted last night to approve yet another proposal to dig up the Black Creek site.
 AND I MEAN DIG! 

The firm that had proposed digging the site last month and was approved by the court seems to  have backed out of the study--THANKS TO ALL OF YOUR EFFORTS! 

If you remember, only two firms in the entire state of New Jersey was willing to do the dig. The first  was Cultural Resource Consulting Group. The second is not an archaeologist but a geologist. They  did not take his proposal seriously, but now that the other firm has backed out, this firm--LaPorta &
Associates--was awarded a contract last night to do a totally invasive dig on the site! 

Philip LaPorta plans to dig holes on the Black Creek Site with a  backhoe--not even a trowel as archaeology requires! The backhoe will dig holes that are 20 feet  wide by 20 feet long by 12 feet deep! Essentially, they will desecrate and destroy this most  sensitive, most significant land. Can you imagine what a 20X20X12 foot hole will do to anything  that is in the way? 

We are shocked. We are appalled at the evil of this township council. It seems to stop at nothing in its thirst for malice. WE MUST APPEAL TO PHILIP LAPORTA TO NOT DISTURB THE BLACK CREEK  SITE. The township must first get approval from the court for this dig. Know that we will surely oppose this measure. 

Please help us by writing letters to LaPorta, sending him e-mail, and, yes, we're back to writing to the judge and PLEADING with him not to allow such a devastation. 

Please, in all you do be courteous and civil. Don't give anyone reason to find fault with us other than for our passion to save this significant site from destruction. 

The township attorney has said that he will send his request for  approval of this study to the judge tomorrow morning (July 27). Please write the judge within the next 48 hours and mail him the letters asking him not to allow such a devastating and destructive  study. 

The judge's address is as follows: 

Honorable Kenneth MacKenzie, J.S.C. 
Superior Court of New Jersey 
Morris County Courthouse 
P.O. Box 910 
Morristown, NJ 07963 

Philip LaPorta's address is: 
116 Bellvale Lakes Road 
Warwick. N.Y. 10990 

ALSO SEND HIM E-MAIL AT 
Philip_C_LaPorta@compuserve.com 

Another thing we learned is that the township manager has written to New Jersey legislators and asked them to intervene to POSTPONE THE NATIONAL REGISTER LISTING of the site that is  supposed to take place on Sept. 12. The state is on our side! Please consider writing to these  legislators as well, telling them not to push for a postponement. These politicians know one  thing--votes! Please send them a message and tell them we want their support. Appeal to them to get involved to preserve the site--not help destroy it as the township has asked them. These  legislators are: 

Marge Roukema 
U.S. Representative 
5th Congressional District 
1500 Route 517, Suite 105 
Hackettstown, NJ 07840 

Commissioner Robert C. Shinn, Jr. 
State of New Jersey 
Department of Environmental Protection 
401 East State Street 
P.O. Box 402 
Trenton, NJ 08625-0402 

We know there is a group in Vernon that is also writing letters to these people asking them NOT TO SUPPORT the preservation of the Black Creek Site. PLease let our voices also be heard to overpower theirs! 

As I write this letter at 1:35 a.m. and I can only expect about four hours sleep tonight before I get up again for work tomorrow, I am very weary. The fight has been a difficult one and a long one. My  strength is wearing thin as day after day there is a letter to write, a document to research, another
battle to be fought. I come close to saying "I will fight no more forever." If you will give me the strength by encouraging me with our team effort, I promise to pursue this to the end. 

It is right to preserve the Black Creek Site. It is right to give 
respect to the Native American ancestors of this country. It is right to once again recognize the homeland of the Lenape and the other cultures who walked this land before we did. I humbly ask  you--please help us once again and write the letters. One day this will be over, and we will celebrate and give thanks to God for giving us the strength to fight for what is right. 

Jessica Paladini 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Native-American-Advocate 

Native-American-Advocate-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 

I am appealing to you to support the Sicangu Lakota (Rosebud Sioux Tribe) in its struggle to avoid becoming the home of the world's third largest hog farm. The first phase of 24 barns is already in place and in spite of tribal opposition and legal intervention by several organizations, Bells Farms (Sun Prairie) continues construction on the second phase. When completed, there will be 13 sites, of 24 barns each. The waste disposal digestor at site #1 is not properly functional, as predicted. 

As indicated in my letter to Mr. Bell, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is valiantly battling the matter in the judicial system, with its sovereignty in serious jeopardy. Meanwhile, we are establishing a vigilance camp, to be called Camp Sovereignty, in the vicinity of the hog farms. We can no longer tolerate the severe corporate oppression of Bell Farms. We can
no longer tolerate the threats to our environment, to the quality of justice, and to our sovereignty.

There are several options for you to consider. You may join me in a letter to Rich Bell by snail mail (sorry we are not able to access an email address for him yet) to: Bell Farms in Wahpeton, ND. Phone number is 701-642-4021. Fax is 701-942-9237.

The RST tribal officials are working against incredible odds. Tribal council resolutions and letters of support from tribal officials would be greatly appreciated. Individual messages of concern are just as powerful. 

William Kindle, President 
Rosebud Sioux Tribe 
POB 430 
Rosebud, SD 57570. 
Phone: 605-747-2381 

If you're looking for a quick, convenient way to indicate your support or to support and/or join the camp vigil for the environment and for justice, check the Camp Sovereignty website.

To see this hog farm to full scale of operation, Mr. Bell would have to crush the tribe. I believe he is capable. We have determined spirits. We need public outrage (and lots of prayers too).

Thank you from my heart,

Rosalie Little Thunder
"mailto:wakinyela@yahoo.com" 

THIS LETTER CAME FROM THE WEBSITE: 
http://www.pathshop.com/camp_sovereignty/
CAMP SOVEREIGNTY
 

From: ILFORCE@aol.com
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 10:55:47 EDT
Subject: WALMART,   GRAVE ROBBING BASTARDS
To: AIM4JUSTCE@aol.com

True to their reputation of deceit, lies and betrayal, the slimy vermin of Walmart has yet been caught in another act of deception and double dealing near Morgantown, WV.  The Walmart ghouls have begun raping a sacred indigenous burial site after promising the community they would not. As has been the case throughout history, those whom we entrusted to protect Indian interest have turned their guns on us in favor of capitalist greed.  Those government and community representatives who pledged their unswerving support of Indian ideals now lie in bed with Walmart in an orgy of greed, money and treachery as they attempt to sodomize our people once again. I know many who read this have fantasized about fighting for the cause of our people, our culture, our dignity.  You have spoken of the horrors heaped upon our people over 500 years.  The horror still exists! Here and now!  Will; you continue to talk or will you respond to an imminent call to action. Will you make history or will you be content to read about it? Those wishing to (Literally) stand with us and defend the honor and dignity of our ancestors near Morgantown, WV are urged to respond to ILFORCE@aol.com and  be available for upcoming actions that will not be openly posted.  We are the 7th generation!  We will not go away!
THE INDIGENOUS LIBERATION FORCE EXISTS TO IDENTIFY, CONFRONT AND NEUTRALIZE THAT WHICH THREATENS OUR PEOPLE AND TO PROMOTE OUR POLITICAL STRENGTH VIA 
TRADITIONAL MEANS!

Madage Moniga "Walks on Wind"

[from Dianne Howard. Thanks!]

In a message dated 4/20/01 3:04:24 PM Central Daylight Time, AIM4JUSTCE 
writes:

<< The following notification was sent to Susan Pierce of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History (State Agency) April 20, 2001. ---

Ms. Pierce: We have received reports that excavation and other activities are taking place on the Straight property on Rt. 705 Monongalia County WV. Without question this is a violation of your March 6, 2001, directive which prohibits this activity. It is also a direct violation of law as indicated in your letter to Sen. John Rockefeller last year. We trusted that your office possessed the authority and willingness to enforce your directives and applicable laws. If you or your office is either unwilling or unable to do so, we need to know immediately so we can plan accordingly. Also, if Gloria Gozdick is considered the "qualified archeologist" indicated in your March 6, directive we wish to strongly object. Her bias towards Wal-Mart, West Virginia University Foundation, and the University is evident! Her findings have been brought into question by reputable archeologist. She is a paid consultant of Walmart and certainly should not be counted on to render evenhanded reports. This is a case of the fox guarding the hen house.

We look to you for immediate protection of this sacred site.
-  Indian Heritage Conservancy- American Indian Movement -END

Friends again our trust has been betrayed.  Again, in our willingness to 
believe in common decency, we have been lied to and duped by those who
promised to protect Indian interest.  The sacred prayer pole which stood proudly to honor our relatives buried within the Fort Hill site lies crushed beneath the wheels of Walmart's p aid ghouls who dig upon our burial site.
Please call WV DIV. of Culture and History and demand it be stopped.
304-558-0220
Please call the WV Attorney general and demand action
304-558-2021 FX 304-558-0140
Please call the Monongalia Prosecuting Attorney  and demand that these grave robbing bastards be brought to Justice. 304-291-7250.
And please be ready to respond to our call to action which appears to be imminent.  Monogalia County is about 75 miles south of Pittsburgh PA on I-79.
-If you think its terrible what was done to Indian people please remember...its still going on!
-Matt Sherman
National Field Office
American Indian Movement
Dennis J. Banks, Director-

-please distribute widely-
Pilamaya