A New Generation of Warriors at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 22, 2024

NEW YORK -- Indigenous Youths are demanding an end to the lithium mining and fake green projects now targeting their homelands, and exposing the human rights violations around the world, during their powerful presentations at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, now in its second week in New York.

Annalee Yellowhammer, Lakota youth from Standing Rock Youth Council in North Dakota, told the U.N. Permanent Forum that the youths from the sovereign Standing Rock Lakota, Nakota and Dakota Indigenous Nation are here to draw attention to the ongoing struggle to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

Morgan Brings Plenty, Cheyenne River Lakota in South Dakota, said Energy Transfer's lawsuit against Greenpeace, expected to go to trial this summer, is an attempt to silence the voices for Mother Earth, and Indigenous who are battling the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Indigenous youths pointed out the lack of justice for survivors of boarding and residential schools in the United States and Canada.

"Canada continues to fail to take up solutions from survivors and Indigenous youths to address the legacy of the residential school system," a coalition of community-based Indigenous youth groups told the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Indigenous community-based youth groups in so-called Canada voiced an urgent need to have their collective rights respected for cultural and language revitalization, and climate justice -- in the face of ongoing environmental racism, land, cultural dispossession and "Canada's willful disregard of traditional government systems."

The women of Bolivia brought their message of power to U.N. Permanent Forum.

"The women in my community have always been warriors," the representative of the powerful Indigenous women's movement in Bolivia told the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Friday.

"Indigenous women and girls face many challenges and we are forgotten. We do not have access to proper education and health care, and economic opportunities. That is not fair and is unacceptable."

"However in Bolivia, we have made significant progress," said the representative of the Confederation of National Indigenous and Campesino Women of Bolivia Bartolina Sisa.

"Fifty percent of our Parliamentarians are women in the National Assembly. Indigenous women are representing Indigenous Peoples in the National Parliament."

Indigenous youth from the MeKong Delta in Vietnam said elderly human rights defenders are being imprisoned, and youths are being denied the benefit of their knowledge. Youths from Hawaii demanded the demilitarization of their homeland and in the Pacific region, and clean-up of the dumped toxic waste. Australian Indigenous said children are being imprisoned, and placed in solitary confinement, and dying in adult prisons.

In the Amazon, Indigenous youths and women said their rivers are being poisoned by mining and oil spills, their forests destroyed, and human rights defenders are being murdered.

The Global Indigenous Youth Caucus spoke in solidarity with Palestine. "We are witnessing the genocide and displacement of Palestinian people. We demand the right of return to their ancestral homeland."

Representing the seven regions of the world, the youths expressed gratitude to their elders for their defense of ancestral homelands, and recognized the role of forced removal of Indigenous children from their families, in disregard for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Anpo Jensen, Kiyuksa Tiospaye, Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, delivered the statement of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus to the U.N.

Nathan Phillips, Deer Clan, Omaha, spoke of prayer, lithium mining and an ancient language lost, and his words brought a welcome calm, in contrast to the fast-paced rhetoric of governments and agencies.

"I came to pray for the people and bring knowledge of what's happening on our reservations, of the lithium, the copper mining and the extraction industries, these things that are destroying our people."

Phillips said there was a lack of funds to bring youths to New York for the Permanent Forum.

"We are coming for everything that our ancestors were denied," Katisha Paul, Stʼatʼimc Nation youth in so-called Canada, told the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

With eloquence and power, Katisha urged more opportunities for Indigenous youths at the United Nations, a greater voice in the solutions to climate change, and an international convention on Indigenous languages.

"Our land is our future. Our Indigenous languages are derived from the land."

Read more:

Censored News new series on the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Bolivia: The Women in My Community Have Always Been Warriors
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/04/bolivia-women-in-my-community-have.html

Spotlight on Indigenous Youths: Katisha Paul
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/04/spotlight-on-indigenous-youths-at-un.html

Omaha Nathan Phillips: Prayer, Lithium and an Ancient Language Lost
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/04/omaha-nathan-phillips-prayer-lithium.html

Blood Memories: Indigenous Women on the Frontlines Inspire with Words and Action
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/04/indigenous-women-upholding-indigenous.html

Warriors for a New Generation: Indigenous Youths
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/04/warriors-for-new-generation-indigenous.html

Indigenous Youths Lead at UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/04/live-now-un-forum-on-indigenous-issues.html

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