[Thanks to an email message from a "JP" for this notice]
Source: www.CaribbeanNetNews.com - Caribbean Net News
Link:
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-script/
csArticles/articles/000053/005391.htm
WASHINGTON, USA: The first peoples to suffer the consequences of Columbus's arrival in the 'New World' are boldly stepping into the 21st century.
As of February 4, 2007, Taino-Arawak Elder Cyril Taylor will become the Honorary Consul of the Lokono-Arawak Nation of South America to the First Nations of North America.
The appointment was made by Damon Gerard Corrie, inheritor of the now ceremonial Hereditary Chieftaincy of the Eagle Clan Lokono-Arawaks, and well-known Barbados-based Amerindian rights activist, who has not been a stranger to controversy over the last 14 years.
When asked if all the other Lokono-Arawak leaders were in support of the move, Corrie had this to say: "In the same manner than you will never get 100% of the people in any country on the face of this Earth to support one politician at any given election, I have supporters and detractors; furthermore, the Lokono-Arawak Nation has never been a politicaly cohesive entity, we have strong leaders of certain clans and villages and weak leaders who are afraid to offend the powers that be; I do what I think is in the best interest of the people without fear of anyone... my armchair critics either do not have the will or capacity to push our inherrent and sovereign rights to the extent that I have and will continue to do."
Corrie went on to say: "The Governments of the American States need to stop deceiving themselves and accept reality's bitter truth - which is this: Apart from the current Bolivian administration of indigenous president Evo Morales, all the other governments of this hemisphere who still have indigenous peoples living within their borders are in fact illigitimate foreign political constructs of an occupational nature.
"And, contrary to the condescending and sadly mistakenly held view of the peoples whose ancestors arrived uninvited in our lands 514 years ago or less, we indigenous peoples do not belong to any state; we exist within the neo-colonial states imposed upon us in our traditional and historic pre-invasion territories. Force does not grant one a moral right to rule another.
"We will gladly share an amicable existence with all non-indigenous peoples in our beloved 'New World', and likewise we will willingly co-operate with the foreign entities currently exercising de facto governance over our lands -- as long as we are treated with the equity we deserve as the first inhabitants of this Western Hemisphere.
"The time has come for us as indigenous peoples to exercise our inherrent and undeniable rights on a higher level than most are still content to, more so in Latin America and the Caribbean than our brothers and sisters in North America, who have been spearheading this phase of the struggle for a very long time. Cultural links are no longer good enough in the twenty-first century, we need to network on every conceivable level -- especially at the level of international politics!"
Corrie, who is the great-great grandson of the nineteenth century Lokono-Arawak Hereditary Chief Amorotahe Haubariria of Guyana, promised that any person belonging to the Lokono-Arawak Tribal Nation resident in tribal communities in Guyana or Suriname, as well as Island Carib tribal members resident on Carib Tribal Lands in Trinidad, St Vincent and Dominica, are entitled to request assistance from the Consulate in locating export trade markets, securing direct investments and cultural exchanges, etc., from the First Nations of North America.
The first Indigenous leader and nation in North America to officially recognise Honorary Consul Cyril Taylor was Chief Gary Harrison of the Atna Dene People of Chickaloon, Alaska.
The address of the new Honorary Consulate will be 14256 Hunters Run Way, Gainesville, VA 20155-4408, USA.
Link:
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-script/
csArticles/articles/000053/005391.htm
WASHINGTON, USA: The first peoples to suffer the consequences of Columbus's arrival in the 'New World' are boldly stepping into the 21st century.
As of February 4, 2007, Taino-Arawak Elder Cyril Taylor will become the Honorary Consul of the Lokono-Arawak Nation of South America to the First Nations of North America.
The appointment was made by Damon Gerard Corrie, inheritor of the now ceremonial Hereditary Chieftaincy of the Eagle Clan Lokono-Arawaks, and well-known Barbados-based Amerindian rights activist, who has not been a stranger to controversy over the last 14 years.
When asked if all the other Lokono-Arawak leaders were in support of the move, Corrie had this to say: "In the same manner than you will never get 100% of the people in any country on the face of this Earth to support one politician at any given election, I have supporters and detractors; furthermore, the Lokono-Arawak Nation has never been a politicaly cohesive entity, we have strong leaders of certain clans and villages and weak leaders who are afraid to offend the powers that be; I do what I think is in the best interest of the people without fear of anyone... my armchair critics either do not have the will or capacity to push our inherrent and sovereign rights to the extent that I have and will continue to do."
Corrie went on to say: "The Governments of the American States need to stop deceiving themselves and accept reality's bitter truth - which is this: Apart from the current Bolivian administration of indigenous president Evo Morales, all the other governments of this hemisphere who still have indigenous peoples living within their borders are in fact illigitimate foreign political constructs of an occupational nature.
"And, contrary to the condescending and sadly mistakenly held view of the peoples whose ancestors arrived uninvited in our lands 514 years ago or less, we indigenous peoples do not belong to any state; we exist within the neo-colonial states imposed upon us in our traditional and historic pre-invasion territories. Force does not grant one a moral right to rule another.
"We will gladly share an amicable existence with all non-indigenous peoples in our beloved 'New World', and likewise we will willingly co-operate with the foreign entities currently exercising de facto governance over our lands -- as long as we are treated with the equity we deserve as the first inhabitants of this Western Hemisphere.
"The time has come for us as indigenous peoples to exercise our inherrent and undeniable rights on a higher level than most are still content to, more so in Latin America and the Caribbean than our brothers and sisters in North America, who have been spearheading this phase of the struggle for a very long time. Cultural links are no longer good enough in the twenty-first century, we need to network on every conceivable level -- especially at the level of international politics!"
Corrie, who is the great-great grandson of the nineteenth century Lokono-Arawak Hereditary Chief Amorotahe Haubariria of Guyana, promised that any person belonging to the Lokono-Arawak Tribal Nation resident in tribal communities in Guyana or Suriname, as well as Island Carib tribal members resident on Carib Tribal Lands in Trinidad, St Vincent and Dominica, are entitled to request assistance from the Consulate in locating export trade markets, securing direct investments and cultural exchanges, etc., from the First Nations of North America.
The first Indigenous leader and nation in North America to officially recognise Honorary Consul Cyril Taylor was Chief Gary Harrison of the Atna Dene People of Chickaloon, Alaska.
The address of the new Honorary Consulate will be 14256 Hunters Run Way, Gainesville, VA 20155-4408, USA.
