Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.
This week’s Earth Minute discusses a 2011 award given to Wukileaks for exposing the efforts made by the US government globally to undermine efforts by Indigenous Peoples to pass the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to campaign against the tar sands gigaproject, to oppose mining projects, or to protest the Olympics in Vancouver.
To listen to this week’s Earth Minute, click here and scroll to minute 42:20.
Text from this week’s Earth Minute:
The controversial website Wikileaks received the 2011 Censored News “Best of the Best” award for exposing US efforts to undermine the rights of Indigenous Peoples.
US State Department Diplomatic cables reveal that the US fought to stop passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, because it feared that Indigenous Peoples would use the declaration to claim rights to their traditional territories, or to exercise their right to free, prior and informed consent regarding development on their territories.
As part of the campaign, Indigenous Peoples in Chile, Peru and Ecuador were targeted. The US Embassy in Peru tracked the involvement of Evo Morales, President of the Plurinational state of Bolivia, Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Also targeted were indigenous activists opposing the Tar Sands, Indigenous campaigners opposing the Olympics in Vancouver; and Mohawks living along the US-Canada border.
The US also spied on people supporting Indigenous peoples’ rights. Actor and activist Danny Glover was the focus of at least five US diplomatic cables.
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.
