No Olympics on stolen land! ---- Disrupt and abolish the G8 and SPP

Active support and solidarity for local struggles of self-determination, justice and dignity

[August 2008 OTTAWA] ---- In the year 2010, three major international events will be taking place in the Canadian state: the Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler (between February 12-28); the G8 Leader's Summit in Huntsville, Ontario (most likely in June or July); and the meeting of the NAFTA leaders as part of the so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)" (date and location not yet known). ---- Already, groups and individuals on the West Coast have come together under the banner of "No Olympics on stolen native land." They have been organizing and raising awareness, from an anti-colonial and anti-capitalist perspective, against the 2010 Olympics, for several years.

[More info available at www.no2010.com and http://harrietspirit.blogspot.com/]

Inspired by the mobilizing on the West Coast, organizers across "Canada"have begun awareness-raising efforts. Building on the call from the West Coast for anti-capitalist and anti-colonial resistance to the Olympics, some organizers affiliated with the "People's Global Action" Bloc (PGA-Bloc) in Ontario and Quebec have begun mobilizing around "Resistance2010", linking
anti-Olympics efforts to organizing against the G8 and SPP, and the day-to-day systems and institutions of power and oppression they represent.

With more than one-year before the Olympics begin, there is a huge opportunity for coordinated and developed campaigns against the Olympics, G-8 and SPP: campaigns that are rooted in our every-day mobilizing, and survival; and campaigns that understand that the institutions of oppression and power function daily in our own communities.

The PGA-Bloc is organizing within the framework of the People's Global Action Hallmarks, which are linked at: www.agp.org

The PGA Hallmarks are a common expression of some of our basic politics, and are linked to a loose international network of grassroots resistance to capitalism that is directly inspired by the Zapatistas. Over the past several years, the "PGA-Bloc" has been used in Ontario and Quebec for
various organizing efforts, such as opposing George Bush's visit to Ottawa (2004) and mobilizing against the SPP meeting in Montebello (2007). The PGA network is also linked to numerous groups who organized anti-capitalist resistance to the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City (2001).

Whether groups are organizing within the PGA Hallmarks or not, we would like to communicate and organize with everyone with shared affinities -- anti-capitalist and anti-colonial analysis; support for direct action;confrontation of oppressive systems; opposition to all forms of oppression;autonomous and horizontal organizing; and support of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination -- in a spirit of unity, solidarity and mutual aid.

There have so far been two regional organizing meetings in Ottawa (in January and July 2008) related to the Resistance 2010 campaign, bringing together activists from Ontario and Quebec. Allies have been meeting in Halifax as well. A Resistance 2010 information session was held at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair this past May, involving participants from Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes as well as the Northeast USA. To date, there have been two visits by Indigenous organizers in "British Columbia" to Ontario and Quebec, and communications between organizers across "Canada".

This callout (our second; the first was made in January 2008) is being made to again encourage networking and communications between groups and individuals who support the Resistance 2010 campaign.

We write this in the hopes that we can re-kindle old networks, encourage and join new ones, and support each other's organizing and struggles towards 2010 and beyond.

In solidarity and in struggle,Members and supporters of the PGA-Bloc in Ontario and Quebec.

www.resistance2010.net (under construction)
info@resistance2010.net


*GET INVOLVED:*

*ENDORSE RESISTANCE 2010:* We encourage groups and organizations to discuss
the Resistance 2010 campaign. If your group supports the main demands of Resistance 2010 campaign -- no Olympics on stolen land; disrupt and abolish the G8 and SPP; and active support and solidarity for local struggles of self-determination, justice and dignity ?- please get in touch to endorse the campaign at info@resistance2010.net

*SHARE INFORMATION:* Please share any public information about activities and campaigns that you've already begun or discussed in your area that might be related to the Resistance2010 effort. We are compiling the public information at info@resistance2010.net and will send it out on our announcements list to share with everyone.

*POPULAR EDUCATION:* We are particularly interested in sharing research and popular education materials. Members of the PGA-Bloc in Ontario and Quebec are working together in the coming months on a more detailed information package to share with your group, as well as more informational workshops. Please e-mail info@resistance2010.net to share any info.


info@resistance2010.net
www.resistance2010.net (under construction)
==================================
* An antiauthoritarian anticapitalist initiative network

Anti-2010 Tour-Native Youth Movement (NYM)

part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BChkDu29-s

part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otkchp0-uz0

Two Warriors from the Native Youth Movement (NYM) recently completed a 20 stop speaking tour against the 2010 Winter Olympics planned to be held in unceded Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver/Whistler, british columbia, klanada). They travelled through Mohawk, Annishinabe, Algonquin, Seneca, Cayuga, Penobscott, and Wampanoag Territories. They went to Sharbot Lake and heard of the Struggle against Uranuim Mining, to Tyenindega and heard of the Struggle against the continued invasion into their territory and occupation to close down a rock quarry, to Kanawake and heard about the european invasion surrounding their community, Akwesasne fighting Home Land Security invading their Territory trying to lock down the fake boarder that runs through their community and to Six Nations and there fight against illegal development on their land.

They went to 11 major cities (so-called Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Kingston, Peterborough, Ottawa, Portland, Boston, MA, Binghamton, NY Ithaca, NY, Guelph,) and various Native communities. NYM were Nation building, networking, and making alliances to Unite our Struggles for Land, Freedom and Life and Survival. Kanahus Pelkey of the Secwepemc/Ktnuxa Nation, and Dustin Johnson of the Ts'mksiyen Nation represented their respective Nations proudly and did the much needed groundwork to gather support against not only the 2010 Olympics but for the Native Liberation Movement in so called 'north amerikkka'. In the last week of the tour NYM members from the Mohawk and Annishinabe Nations joined their west coast comrades to spread the word and show that Warriorz are United East to West, North to South.

The Native Youth Movement is part of the Zapatista's Other Campaign and are in full Alliance and Agreement with its Principles and Objectives, and just as our Zapatista brothers and sisters travelled the Land to Unite Native Nations, and supporters alike, we are doing the same in the North. Our Fight for life is the same, we must stop the destruction of Mother Earth, nothing can survive without Clean Air, Food, and Water.

---

A photo report of their visit to Montreal, with background to the organizing against the 2010 Olympics is linked here:

http://photos.cmaq.net/v/no2010/

An audio recording of Kanahus and Dustin's visit to Montreal, recorded by David Parker of the CKUT Community News Collective, is linked here:

http://www.ncra.ca/business/admin_ncra/progex/programFiles/53/No_Olympics_final.mp3

A photo report from Kanahus' press conference in Guelph is linked here: http://resistanceisfertile.ca/tour

Links to numerous articles written about the tour:

Native Youth Protest 2010 Olympics by Sam Bick
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=6953

Native Groups Protest Olympics Held on Disputed Land by Stefan Christoff
http://www.hour.ca/news/news.aspx?iIDArticle=13861



Two British Columbia Aboriginals Say 2010 Olympics Will Not be All Fun and Games by Canadian Press
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jwpN1E6HIQ7kKdukuNKfFA2vP03A

Who holds the torch? 2010 and the anti-Olympics campaign in British Columbia by Evan Brockest
http://trentarthur.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=390&Itemid=38

Natives group rebukes Olympic land-grab: 2010 paving way for extensive development on aboriginal land by Richard Tardif

INDIGENOUS ANTI-OLYMPIC MOVEMENT IN SOLIDARITY WITH TYENDINAGA MOHAWKS

Speech given by Angela Sterritt as part of a panel in support of the
Tyendinaga Mohawks. (Details on the panel are at
http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=558)

Ange is a Gitxsan woman who lives and works on Coast Salish Territory. She
is a grassroots indigenous organizer, an advocate for indigenous women and
girls, as well as an artist and writer.

****************

I would like to thank Sue Collis for coming here today to talk to us about
Shawn Brant as well as express my gratitude and honor for those like Shawn
Brant whom have risked their freedom and lives for the freedom and lives
of others and for the future generations.

I also want to acknowledge that what happened to Shawn Brant, Harriet
Nahannee, John Graham and others is not only a terrible abomination and
explication of the tyrannical nature of the justice system but
representative of the refusal of the Klanadian government to remove itself
from its perpetuation and implication in the occupation and theft of
Indigenous lands.

As the Olympics draw closer, we are seeing an acceleration of this
repression and criminal behavior from all levels of government. In the
same way that Mohawks have opposed corporate invasion and government
terrorism in Tyendinaga, there has been resistance in the occupied
Indigenous territories of BC from many Indigenous nations.

The Olympics- whose budget is close to 30 billion dollars for a 2 week
spectacle- acts as a microcosm for the way in which Klananda has oppressed
Indigenous people in order to gain access to rights and title to
Indigenous lands. It also asserts itself as a real threat to
Indigenous people and our lands, and likewise sees Indigenous people as a
real threat to its very existence.

On December 3, 1998, The Canadian Olympic Association chose Vancouver as
its candidate city. Vancouver was posited as the "security and safety"
candidate - ironic and insulting since most people know by now the large
number of Indigenous people imprisoned and killed by police; not to
mention the reality that over 60 women, many Indigenous, were taken from
the downtown eastside, murdered or never to be seen again.

As well, how secure do Indigenous people feel now that over 30 Indigenous
women and girls have gone missing or been murdered along highway of tears
in northern British Columbia? It is often the case that the Justice System
has protected the predators and killers of these women, while Indigenous
women have been ignored and over-policed. The Justice system has since its
inception of settler/colonial society used police forces, courts and
racist civil society to undermine and outlaw our Original sacred systems
and laws. It continues to imprison and kill our people to gain access to
our lands.

It's also insulting to promote Vancouver as the security candidate given
the 'insecure' and uncertain nature of Indigenous lands and resources
targeted by corporations to be privatized.

Indigenous Resistance to the Olympic hegemony has been greatly
criminalized, in hopes to reassure the hungry visitors, or the tourists
that their stay will be safe. The attempts to silence us in jails and
through our death are cross-country efforts.

Like Shawn, Harriet Nahannee stood up against the theft of the land and
was punished greatly.

Harriet was a Pedechat Elder who had married into the Squamish Nation and
was protesting an infamous Olympic development, the Achilles heal of the
Olympics, the Sea-to-Sky Highway. She was sentenced to a provincial jail
for criminal contempt of court for her part in the Sea-to-Sky
Highway-expansion protest at Eagleridge Bluffs. She died of pneumonia and
complications at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver on February 24 2007,
just one month after her original sentencing. Nahanee had been weak from
the flu and asthma in January, and it was widely suspected that Nahanee's
condition worsened during her incarceration at the Surrey Pre-Trial
Centre, a facility set up predominantly for housing male criminals.

An independent public inquiry into her passing was called for in the
Legislative Assembly of British Columbia on March 5. Solicitor-General
John Les said the provincial government expressed "regret" for the passing
but denied any government responsibility and refused opposition requests
for an inquiry.

The expose of Harriet's plight helped to catapult many Indigenous people
in the city to act to oppose Olympic atrocities against our people and
compelled us to organize, educate and mobilize each other.

One of the more significant Indigenous struggles people in the city have
been working in solidarity with is the plight of the Secwepemc and
St'at'imc people to resist the expansion of ski-resorts on their lands.

Just last week The Austrian ski team arrived on Secwepemc lands to train
for the 2010 games. They will be the first to train on the new 3 million
dollar Nancy Greene International Race Centre at Sunpeaks built this
summer. Phase 1 has recently been completed and once phase 2 and 3 are
completed Sun Peaks will be able to boast a new dedicated lift and an
additional snow making capacity. The fake snow is made with reused sewage
water that pollutes Skelkwek'welt waters and depletes underground
Aquifers. Sunpeaks corporate mega-development development also continues
to destroy Secwepemc Land by clear-cutting whole mountainsides and
valuable hunting grounds, berry picking and medicine harvesting areas. Now
the Austrian Ski Team is at Sun Peaks promoting and training for the 2010
Winter Games!

Not only does this kind of destruction of the land destroy Indigenous
cultures and relationships to the land by displacing Indigenous people, it
also has an impact on our identity as Indigenous people. The Olympikkks
like the Klanadian government uses Indigenous identities for their
expediency. They want the public to "imagine" a bourgeoisie's playground.
They use and abuse our cultures for entertainment, but our sovereignty is
simply an annoyance.

For example, a walk known as the "People walk together", which was
ceremonial blessed earlier this month, will showcase Aboriginal people to
walking across the Burrard Bridge in September 2008 to show off our
"color, culture, and vibrancy" under the umbrella of "reconciliation" as a
lead up to the 2010 Olympics.

Knowing that cultural genocide, land theft, criminalization and murder of
our people happens daily at the hands of Klananda, it seems far-fetched to
most that reconciliation is possible at this point. This tactic of
assimilation, with the use of culture as a cover, is text book
collaboration and utilized in an attempt to demand the "undivided
attention" of ALL to the 2010 games whereas the reality is they simply
divide oppressed communities more.

Optics and imagery are also used in other communities, namely poor and
marginalized women's. The Olympic city brothel was proposed as a co-op
brothel under the guise of making it safe for sex workers working in
Vancouver in 2010. When I first saw this I thought of predatory
capitalism. The trafficking of women, in which Indigenous women and
immigrant women are overrepresented, is one of the easiest illegal
"commodities" to move. A pimp makes about 250,000, per women or girl in
the illegal trafficking of human flesh.

The Olympics is infamous for utilizing the sex trade to accommodate
investors ,business men and other hungry visitors. An estimated 10,000 sex
workers plied their trade during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, many
imported from abroad. More than 40,000 women and girls were brought to
Athens for the 2004 Summer Games. For the 2006 World Cup in Germany, more
than 20,000 women were imported. Investors and Business men who come to
the 2010 games are inevitability on the look out for cheap lands,
resources, and women.

Some may defend the sex trade saying it's the oldest profession, but like
many parts of colonization and capitalism it presents itself as the oldest
oppression and one that needs to be ended, along with poverty, greed,
hatred and suffering.

These are some of the issues Indigenous Anti-Olympic Organizers have been
working on in the city and some of the ways in which we have shaped our
actions and campaigns. We urge you to learn more and take actions. The
Olympics destroys Native lands, Indigenous women, Indigenous communities,
and human dignity. The Olympics creates homelessness, abject poverty,
further violence and racism. End the Olympikkk Oppression Now!

http://harrietspirit.blogspot.com/2007/11/honor-dead-fight-for-living-shawn-brant.html