Western Shoshone appeal for United Nations intervention
 
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 10:22:52 -0500 (CDT)

 
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12 ICT: Western Shoshone appeal for United Nations intervention

[2005/08/19]

Radiation standards

by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today

GENEVA - In an urgent appeal to halt the assault on ancestral
lands, the Western Shoshone Nation filed an urgent action
request before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination in August.

The request challenges the U.S. government's assertion of
federal ownership of nearly 90 percent of Western Shoshone lands.

Joe Kennedy, Western Shoshone, was among those urging immediate
action to halt the United States and gold and energy
corporations.

''Our traditional laws tell us we were placed here as
caretakers of the land,'' Kennedy said. ''As part of the Western
Shoshone Nation, we will not stand idly by and allow the U.S.
federal government to cement its hold on our ancestral land
base.''

The Western Shoshone land base covers approximately 60 million
acres, stretching across what is now referred to as the states
of Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California. The lands include the
proposed Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste facility and
lands targeted for expanded gold extraction.

''Western Shoshone rights to the land - which they continue to
use, care for and occupy today - are recognized by a ratified
treaty with the United States,'' said the Western Shoshone
delegation in Geneva, Aug. 8 - 19.

In its 2005 CERD written request, the Western Shoshone seek a
halt to all further U.S. actions against Western Shoshone and
the expansion of any extractive or other activities permitted by
the United States.

Western Shoshone said the United States has conducted numerous
military-style seizures of Western Shoshone livestock, has
transferred alleged Western Shoshone trespass fines to the
Internal Revenue Service and private collection agencies, and
has reinvigorated federal efforts to open a nationwide nuclear
waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

''In 2003, the U.S. Congress passed legislation allowing for
distribution of a highly controversial Indian Claims Commission
award for [the] alleged extinguishment of Western Shoshone land.

''Since that legislation was passed, efforts to privatize
Western Shoshone lands for transfer to multinational extractive
industries and energy developers have been intensified,'' the
delegation said.

Western Shoshone asserted that these actions, justified by
racially discriminatory legal doctrines enshrined in the
domestic law of the United States, demonstrate a serious,
massive and persistent pattern of racial discrimination against
the Western Shoshone Nation and its people in accordance with
CERD urgent action and early warning procedures.

The U.N. committee established the early warning/urgent action
procedures in 1993 in order to act quickly in preventing the
further escalation of human rights abuses.

Western Shoshone have also raised concerns before the U.N.
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

''The role of non-state actors, or multinational corporations,
in the ongoing human rights violations against indigenous
peoples is also being addressed by the delegation in response to
the influential posture of the gold companies and the energy
industry under the current administration,'' Western Shoshone
said.

Previously, CERD expressed concern about the ongoing struggle
of the Western Shoshone people and the continued violation of
indigenous human rights in the United States.

In 2001, the committee questioned the United States' continued
application of the ''doctrine of discovery,'' a racially based
legal fiction that was used to justify the genocide of Indian
peoples and the taking of their lands due to their ''inferior''
status as non-Christians.

The committee also questioned the U.S. delegation about why
domestic law allowed the U.S. government to unilaterally
abrogate Indian treaties, to which the United States never
provided an answer.

Western Shoshone said the situation has become even graver.

CERD is slated to meet with U.S. government representatives in
August to hear the government's response.

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