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Amnesty International

Authorities in Mexico have dropped the charges against four Indigenous human rights defenders who have been imprisoned for nearly a year in Guerrero State, despite insufficient evidence against them. They are expected to be released this week.

Amnesty International has welcomed the decision to drop the charges against the four Indigenous human rights defenders but is continuing to call for the release of the remaining defender who is still being held on fabricated charges.

The five members of the Guerrero-based Me’ phaa Indigenous People’s Organization (OPIM), Manuel Cruz, Orlando Manzanarez, Natalio Ortega, Romualdo Santiago and Raúl Hernández, were detained and taken to Guerrero’s state prison on charges of murder on 17th April 2008. Charges against all but Raúl Hernández were dropped last night because of a lack of evidence against them.

“There was never sufficient evidence to justify keeping the Indigenous human rights defenders in prison,” said Susan Lee, Americas Director at Amnesty International. “The decision to drop the charges against them is very positive news. Now the next urgent step is to end the unfair detention and trial of Raúl Hernández.”

“It is time for the authorities to recognise that the prosecution case against these Indigenous defenders is politically motivated and based on unreliable and fabricated evidence in order to punish them for their legitimate work promoting the rights of their community.”

The Me’ phaa Indigenous People’s Organization (Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me’ phaa, OPIM) was founded in 2002 to defend and promote the rights of the Me’ phaa (Tlapanecas) Indigenous People in Mexico.

The southern state of Guerrero, which is home to some 116,000 Me’ phaa Indigenous People, has one of the highest levels of marginalization and some of the lowest indicators of human development in the country.

Amnesty International has documented a pattern of harassment and intimidation against members of Indigenous rights organizations in Guerrero state such as the OPIM over a number of years. Most recently, the Secretary and President of the Organization for the Future of Mixtec Indigenous Peoples (Organizacion para el Futuro de los Pueblos Mixtecos, OFPM) were found murdered on 20 February in Tecoanapa municipality, Guerrero State.

The bodies of the two men were unearthed a thirty minute drive away from where they were abducted by armed men seven days earlier. Both of the bodies have been identified by their families, who report that they show clear signs of torture.

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By Ian Sample

Collections of brain cells in the hippocampus encoded the person’s location

Scientists have used brain scans to read people’s memories and work out where they were as they wandered around a virtual building.
The landmark study by British researchers demonstrates that powerful imaging technology is increasingly able to extract our innermost thoughts.

The feat prompted the team to call for an ethical debate on how brain imaging may be used in the future, and what safeguards can be put in place to protect people’s privacy.

The study was part of an investigation aimed at learning how memories are created, stored and recalled in a part of the brain called the hippocampus.

By understanding the processes at work in the brain, scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London hope to get a better grasp of how Alzheimer’s disease and strokes can destroy our memories and find ways to rehabilitate patients.
In the study, volunteers donned a virtual reality headset and were asked to make their way between four locations in a virtual building. Throughout the task, their brain activity was monitored using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Eleanor Maguire and Demis Hassabis then used a computer program to look for patterns in the volunteers’ brain activity as they stood on virtual rugs in the four different locations. They found that particular collections of brain cells encoded the person’s location in the virtual world, and they were able to use this to predict where each volunteer was standing.

“Remarkably, using this technology, we found we could accurately predict the position of an individual within this virtual environment, solely from the pattern of activity in their hippocampus,” said Maguire.
“We could predict what memories a person was recalling, in this case the memory for their location in space,” she added.

The study overturns neuroscientists’ assumption that memories of our surroundings are encoded in the brain in an unpredictable way. The latest research suggests that this is not the case, and that the information is stored in our neurons in a very structured way that can be picked up by scanners.

The scientists could not tell where somebody was from a single brain scan. Instead, they had to perform several scans of volunteers in each location. Only afterwards were they able to find differences in brain activity that betrayed the person’s location.

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Dear DDR Supporters,

Please Share with many others!

Elouise Brown
President, Dooda Desert Rock
PO Box 7838
NewComb, New Mexico 87455

505-947-6159

www.doodadesertrock.com
thebrownmachine@gmail.com

www.1skyNM.org
www.navajogreenjobs.com
www.servicewomen.org
www.prepaidlegal.com

For us, warriors are not what you think of as warriors. The warrior is not someone who fights, because no one has the right to take another’s life. The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenseless, those who can not provide for themselves, and above all, the children, the future of humanity.” —Sitting Bull

Elouise Brown
Treasurer, Hada’asidi (The Vigilant Ones) Organization
PO Box 4588
Window Rock, Arizona 86515

(Submitted by Elouise Brown)

Navajo vice president tours energy facilities in France
Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms

Diné Bureau
WINDOW ROCK — Navajo Nation Vice President Ben Shelly is in Paris this week to look at renewable energy and the recycling of nuclear fuel.
Sherrick Roanhorse of the Vice President’s Office said Shelly is one of nine tribal leaders invited by the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management in Denver. “The trip is purely educational. It’s to educate tribal leaders about energy policy, energy technology, and it’s to make the tribal leaders aware of energy projects.
“The United States currently does not recycle spent fuel rods by the United States’ 104 reactors,” Roanhorse said.

According to its Web site, the Institute and Areva — the world leader in nuclear power — organized a series of site visits to Areva energy facilities in France for a tribal delegation from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Osage Nation, and Navajo Nation.
Also in the delegation are representatives of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes and Sinte Gleska University in Mission, S.D. The site visits are intended to further inform tribal leadership on the wide range of energy and sustainable development issues that already are the focus of national and international energy and climate policies and programs, the announcement states.

Areva has manufacturing facilities in 43 countries and a sales network in more than 100. The nuclear giant has a front-end division that deals with uranium ore exploration, mining, concentration, conversion and enrichment, nuclear fuel design and fabrication.
The company also designs and constructs nuclear reactors, while its back-end division specializes in the treatment and recycling of used fuel and cleanup of nuclear facilities. It also has a transmission and distribution division that provides systems and services designed to transport and distribute electricity from the power plant to the final user.

The Arizona Legislature is considering House Bill 2623, to add a renewable energy standard. Under the bill, nuclear energy would be considered renewable energy. The “Renewable Energy Policy” would include tax credits and incentives relating to the production and distribution of solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, nuclear, hydro generation, agricultural waste and landfill gas power.

Resources Committee Chairman George Arthur, who was unaware of the vice president’s trip or that it was being paid for out of the division’s budget, said, “That’s interesting, because I’m getting my education right here on Navajo with people that are party to some of these discussions and I don’t have to travel very far to get good information on renewable energy like wind power and solar energy. It’s just next door to us.

“As far as nuclear interest is concerned, I’m kind of puzzled that one particular leadership should be having to travel abroad to expand on the industry or to be educated in respect to nuclear development when that in itself has been very devastating to our own Navajo people. I, for one, took the initiative to put forth a legislation that I assume the Navajo Nation leadership upholds and will uphold in respect to the banning of nuclear development, either mining or processing activities.”

Budget and Finance Committee Chairman LoRenzo Bates also said that the Navajo Nation has spoken on the uranium issue “and before any possibility of that being considered, it most definitely has to be brought back to the Nation for consideration. But given the lack of any further revenue outside of the casinos, outside of Desert Rock that has yet to become a reality, a president may end up looking at some sort of involvement with uranium.

“But up until then, that president cannot be beating around the bush. A president has to come out and let the people know that this is what’s being considered. This back-room tactics doesn’t cut it with the Navajo people. At some point there will be a president that’s going to have to deal with the matter.”

Roanhorse said the trip was just a fact-finding tri
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Lahore Film and Literary Club (LFLC)
invites you to screening of

1947-Earth
directed by Deepa Mehta.
Starring Amir Khan and Nandita Das, the film is based on
Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Ice Candy Man.
Date: 3 April 2009 (Friday)
Time: 05:00–06:45 pm

The film will be followed by a discussion with
Bapsi Sidhwa

(Ms. Sidhwa’s books will be available for sale)
Date: 3 April 2009 (Friday)
Time: 07:00–08:00 pm
Venue:
South Asian Media Centre
177 A Shadman II, Lahore
Tel: 755 5621-28
Email: lflc.pk@gmail.com

Entry: Free of Cost (invitation not required)
For details or directions contact:

Bushra Sultana
0300-8430333
Sarah Tareen
0300-4591184

Ms. Sarah Tareen
Coordinator

Lahore Film and Literary Club
177-A,Shadman-2,Lahore
South Asian Media Centre.
(92-42) 7555621-8

Uncontacted Indians face annihilation

The Awá are one of the last nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes in Brazil. About 60 Awá have no contact with outsiders.
Although most live in legally recognized reserves, the Awá are hemmed into ever smaller spaces as loggers, settlers and cattle ranchers invade their land and cut down their forest.
The Awá are a small tribe living in the Amazon state of Maranhão. They are one of only two nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes remaining in Brazil.

Some are uncontacted, ranging from tiny family groups living in the last fragments of Maranhão’s rapidly dwindling rainforest outside legally recognized territories, to approximately 40 individuals living in the Araribóia reserve.

In the 1970s huge iron ore deposits were discovered in the region. This led to the Great Carajás Programme, a development project funded by the EU and the World Bank which included building a mine and a railway.

The Awá and other indigenous peoples saw their lands opened up to unprecedented invasions by outsiders.

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Dakar — In his first public statement on condoms and AIDS earlier this week, Pope Benedict XVI reignited an international debate between religious leaders working with AIDS patients and European governments that fund anti-HIV programmes in developing countries.
En route to the capital Yaoundé in Cameroon, the pope said: “You can’t resolve [the problem of HIV] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.” In addition, he said a responsible attitude toward sex would help fight the disease.
The French Foreign Ministry responded this week that the Catholic leader’s comments are “a threat to public health policies and the duty to protect human life.”

For couples in which one person is infected with HIV, with the consistent use of condoms there is a less than one percent rate of transmission, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).
About 22 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV, according to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
In 2007 three-quarters of the world’s AIDS deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa, as were two-thirds of all people living with HIV.

No change

Paul Sagna with the Catholic NGO AIDS Service Association in Senegal told IRIN there is nothing in the pope’s comments that warranted the latest outbreak of international concern. “The Catholic Church has not changed its position. The pope has a right to express the church’s convictions. Doctors have their scientific convictions and we have our religious convictions. What is the problem?”

Sagna said those who visit his NGO in Senegal’s capital Dakar know they will not find condoms there and will find instead other HIV support services.

Jose Manuel, parish priest of Maria Auxiliatrice Church in the Togolese capital Lomé, told IRIN that in addition to condoms there are other ways to avoid HIV infection, and that the Catholic Church has been at the forefront of HIV services. “We have long supported medication, therapy, accompanying patients on doctor visits. It is not the church’s role to promote condoms. But to say we are against the protection of human life because of our doctrine against condoms is incorrect.”

Catholic priest Pierre Marie Chanel with the Commission to Fight Sexually-Transmitted Diseases, based 50km north of Lomé, told IRIN that despite 20 years of condom distribution campaigns, the situation has improved little in Togo. “We cannot follow blindly [supporters of condoms] who may have ulterior profit motives. We need to instead delay the age youths engage in sexual relations and encourage abstinence.”

According to government records, infection rates in Togo have fallen from 4.7 percent in 2003 to 3.2 percent in 2006.
In addition to Catholic NGOs that teach abstinence, the government supports free condom distribution.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that the current supply of condoms in low- and middle-income countries falls well short of the number required to protect people from HIV.

Reality calls for condoms

Reverend Mulbah Reeves with the United Methodist Church in Liberia’s capital Monrovia told IRIN the Catholic Church’s doctrine against condoms does not address the reality in countries like Liberia, which is recovering from a 14-year civil war.

“No amount of HIV and AIDS education without talking about the use of condoms can help protect our younger generation,” said Reeves. “Our people will not adhere to abstaining from sex and neither will they be faithful to their partners. The only language they listen to is condoms.”

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By B. R. Gowani

Pre-UST (prior to US tragedy of 2001)

Two giant Gujaratis collided
No … Not for business
If such was the case
There would have been:
Merger, bankruptcy, total ruin, or bailout
Alas! It was not so benign
Gandhi and Jinnah couldn’t reconcile
The raging Hindu/Muslim issue
The British ruled India
With a seditious hand
The Fire now out of control …

Created in the name of Islam it was
By believers of secular democracy
The founder died within 13 months
(The other Gujarati having exited earlier)
Scarcely within a few years
Pakistan’s future became predictable.
As a mere four years later,
The first premier Liaqat Ali was slay.

The New Premier Nazimuddin was removed by
Governor General Ghulam Muhammad
Democratic inclination was thus crushed
And a revolving door was set up:
As unstable governments entered and exited

Meanwhile, Allah’s agents had become busy
The Imperial Power (IP) with the 20/20 sight
Was also watching the new nation in greed
The army blessed by the IP
Grabbed the power swiftly and completely

The general/president/dictator Ayub
Pronounced the dictum: country’s hot weather
Unsuitable for democracy;
So he ruled with danda
When people became immune to danda
He was thrown out 11 years later

His last crime
Before leaving, he left
General/president/drunkard Yahya
Who presided over the disintegration of Pakistan?

54% colonized people and
30% neglected land bid adios
A new nation in poverty created …

A feudal/pseudo/socialist Bhutto took over
Intellectual but authoritarian got hanged by a
General/president/religious fanatic Zia

The worst one in this country’s history
After 11 years was sky-bound …

The Sky showered mercy on Pakistanis
He, his plane, his co-generals, and US ambassador
In air they all exploded …
Of course, the sky had human aid

Fair-sexed yet hard-core politician Benazir
Holding 10%’s hand, got elected
She was inevitably followed by
An Islamist/politician/crook Sharif
Both elected and ejected two times and counting …

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s custodian
had been out for 11 years, so Musharaff, General/president/dictator/”enlightened moderate”
Took over Pakistan to “save” it

Then … lo and behold
A great tragedy occurred in a country
Whose sole afflictions and tragedies count
The people they trained insidiously
Struck it at its own very core

Post UST

Everybody had to join the US
In its moment of pain
Real grief contrived; mainly out of fear
Pakistan was forced to grieve

Now many Pakistanis are truly grieving
Over the fate of their beloved country

The plan now demolished was for
Musharaff to share power with Benazir:
She was gunned down by
ISI or Taliban or other Islamists?

Zardari, her rotten half, has the power now, while
Sharif, her rival, desires to “serve” the people

Who’s at War with Whom

The US is at war with the Islamists
And is also at war with democracy

Zardari is at war with the Islamists
And is also at war with Sharif

Sharif is at war with Zardari only

The US doesn’t want Sharif/Zardari to fight
It wants both to fight the Islamists, instead
Islamists are at war with almost everyone

They don’t want Zardari to support the US
Instead they want him to fight the US

India wants Zardari to fight the Islamists
Islamists are also fighting India in Kashmir

China wants Zardari to fight the Islamists
As it fears problems in its border area

Saudis are at war against the Muslim moderates
Moderates are at war among themselves,
Arguing how to handle the Islamists:
Through war or through dialogue

Tug-of-war

In a tug-of-war
It’s the strong rope
Which two opponents pull at either ends

This rope called Pakistan
Is being pulled
In all directions
By all kinds of opponents
From the ends and the middle and every where

Pakistan is now weak and sick, and so it seems
In the end, everyone will get a piece
Some small, some big
And the US will try to get the nuclear piece

Thus this international tragedy will end
And a new one will begin
That of a failed state …

Although, millions Hope not, millions wish otherwise,
But human hope is usually hopeless
When pitted against powerful and crazy forces …

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com