7.) "The Longest Walk", July 1978, a joint position paper on "Genocide" issued from Dine (Navajo), the Lakota (Sioux) and the Haudenenosaunee (Six Naitons of the Iroquois Confederacy)(10 min read)

 "For countless thousands of years our people have lived on this continent in peace and tranquility, coexisting with all natural life. In the beginning we were told that the human beings who walk upon the Earth have been provided with all the things necessary for life. We were instructed to carry a love for one another, and to show a great respect for all beings of this Earth. We were shown that our life exists with the tree life, that our well-being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged. In our way, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics. Our Roots are deep in the lands where we live. We have a great love for our country, for our birthplace is here. The soil is rich from the bones of thousands of our generations. Each of us was created in these lands and it is our duty to take care of them, because from these lands will spring the future generations of our peoples. We walk about with great respect, for the Earth is a very sacred place.

Our traditional governments are truly governments "of the people, by the people, and for the people." All power of authority at all levels comes from the people and can be withdrawn at any time if the power is abused or responsibilities not met.

Our traditional governments cannot be adequately compared to the different forms of government that exists around us today. As with all aspects of native life, our governments have their roots in the religious systems. Leaders are chosen for, among other things, the way they live their lives according to the four main virtues of bravery, fortitude, generosity, and wisdom. They are men who have proven themselves and shown commitment to uphold and enforce the spiritual and natural law, and also the laws of the people.

We are people who strongly believe in cycles of the Universe. Everything is based on concepts of harmony and balance. With the coming of the peoples from the East, this hemisphere has experienced a 486 year conflict between Western Civilization and the Natural World Peoples.

The western culture has been horribly exploitative and destructive of the Natural World. Over 140 species of birds and animals were utterly destroyed since the European arrival in the Americas, largely because they were unusable in the eyes of the invaders. The forests were leveled, the waters are polluted, are people subjected to genocide. The vast herds of herbivores reduced to mere handfuls, the Buffalo nearly extinct. Western technology and the people who employ it have been and continue to be the most amazingly destructive forces in all human history. No natural disaster has ever destroyed as much. Not even the Ice Age counted as many victims.

Many would like to believe that all of these  injustices have ended. This couldn't be further from the truth. Our native nations entered into hundreds of treaties with the European colonists and the U.S. These treaties recognized the sovereignty of our nations, and guarantee the land and resources which belong to our nations.

Our people are the most abused of all peoples in North America. The extreme wrongs which are committed against our people today affect our everyday lives. Under the laws and policies of the U.S. we do not possess recognition of even the most fundamental rights necessary to our survival. We have no real rights in our lands, no rights to determine our Way of Life, no rights to our economic development. We are not even allowed to protect our communities against unfair actions by any people who choose to invade our homelands. Our lands are leased "for us" by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Our governments are frequently controlled or hindered by the Interior Department. Our right to exist as communities and Nations are not protected, and are often denied by the courts. We are a horribly oppressed people in our own land. The most basic justice is denied to our peoples, and only to our peoples!

We are the only people in North America who own land and resources and who must worry that these can be taken away from us. No one else who owns resources is subject to an unrelenting fear that the U.S. government well take those things away...

We are the only people who have formal legal agreements with the United States government, which the U.S. freely violates without legal liability. The constitution of the U.S. does not allow this to happen to other peoples. Yet, the U.S. claims the legal right to violate and ignore legal treaties made with our nation's...

Our people are often subjected to such extensive bureaucratic control and manipulation that the process amounts to the denial of even the slightest amount of real self-government. Although there are laws and policies that give the appearance of participation in the processes that affect our land and peoples, the reality is that we have no power over the bureaucracies or laws and policies which affect our lives. Indeed, the practices of the U.S. have the impact of foreign control over our affairs. The official U.S. position states that there exists on our lands a significant measure of self-determination. This is an illusion created to confuse the people of the U.S. and the world. Our people possess the least self-determination of any communities in North America.

Only the native people can be subjected to acts of theft and fraud with no possibility of justice under law. What other people are told that even if a fraudulent, or other illegal act can be proven beyond any doubt, that the courts have no power to correct the wrongs which are committed? Yet, that is the actual practice of the Courts.

The Political Question Doctrine applied by the courts prevents the courts from questioning fraudulent treaties, prevents the courts from correcting many treaty violations, and prevents the courts from questioning or correcting the abusive acts of government relating to our peoples.

What other communities have no right, under law, to pass ordinances to protect their members from the acts of violent and destructive outsiders? What other communities of people in the whole world are denied the right to control the acts of companies and individuals operating on their lands? Yet this is exactly the situation suffered by our peoples in the U.S. today, right now!

Only our peoples can be driven from their lands without due process of law. Under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Tee-Hit-Ton Indians, the U.S. can, and does, take lands which have been forever the lands of our peoples. They not only take the land, but they assert the power to do so without any compensation, and without due process, and there is no law which protects our people from these obvious thefts.

The struggles of our people have brought our leaders before the Judicial, Legislative, and Executive branches of the U.S. government, time after time, in futile attempts to find Justice.

The real issues of Sovereignty and Treaty Rights have been consistently submerged to the processes of bureaucratic white tape. Time after time we have been referred to the Interior Department which has neither the competency nor the power to effectively deal with these issues. We cannot allow these acts to continue if we are to survive as a people.

It seems the basic attitude of the American people and the government towards our peoples is yet one of extreme apathy.

Presently the Human Rights, Rights of Nationhood, Right to Self-Determination, and the basic right of existence of our peoples are being actively denied in the US.

We challenge the President of the U.S. to take the first step in correcting these wrongs by meeting with the Traditional and Spiritual leaders of our peoples to begin serious negotiations.

The basic issue of Human Rights raised by the President of the U.S. is hypocrisy and an outrage when viewed in the context of the history and present conditions of our peoples.

The definition of genocide as stated in Article II of The International Convention on genocide provides the basis of our people's charge of genocide made at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in September, 1977. 

Article II states:" in the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, such as: a.) killing members of the group; b.) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c.) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d.) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group". 

Many of our young people went across the seas and never returned. We were told that we went to war to fight for our country. Our War casualties under the U.S. flag are greater than any other sector of the North American population. Yet today, our country is threatened by the U.S.

U.S. police and intelligence agencies have directed illegal military operations against our peoples, such as COINTELPRO. These actions have resulted in the violent deaths of a number of our leaders. The process has not stopped, and we have no protection against these actions. As a result of these actions, there are in many U.S. prisons, patriotic native people who only advocate peace and freedom for their Nations.

According to a GAO report issued last year, 24% of our women were forcibly or illegally sterilized during the period 1971- 1975.

Nearly one out of three of our children are being placed in non-indian foster homes daily, by various county, state and federal agencies.

The Indian reorganization Act of 1934 continues to destroy the traditional government of our people, causing widespread disruption of a tranquil Way of Life, and literally putting brother against brother.

The clear-cut policy of genocide of the last century continues in more sophisticated forms in this century.

Our religions have been attacked, and degraded. Our children continue to be processed through various forms of western educational programs. The spiritual leaders of our nations are now being subjected to the destructive nature of government program moneys. Taxpayer moneys are being used to regulate the practice of our natural religions. There are even efforts to certify our medicine peoples and  despiritualize the nature of our healing culture. That practice is a policy that is destroying our natural healing practices. It is a policy which is an outrageous attempt to interfere with, and ultimately destroy our natural religion.

Finally, the Bills currently before Congress which call for the abrogation of Indian treaties, and termination of our lands, resources, and water, present a clear signal that the threat of genocide to the existence of our peoples is alive and well. The fact that the present Congress of the U.S., in the year 1978, can consider such legislation should alarm the people of the US. When a government denies the human rights of one people, it is only a matter of time before those rights will be denied to all of its peoples.

We call upon the voting public of the U.S. to seriously consider the question of ethics and morality of their representative leadership in congress who are responsible for the introduction of dangerous and racist legislation against our peoples.

We call upon the U.S. to acknowledge its responsibilities under international law to respect Indian treaties, to ensure genuine self-determination for our nations, and to correct past wrongs in an honorable and equitable manner.

The traditional people recognize that the injustice perpetrated upon our people, and indeed upon many of the peoples of the world, are the major factors destroying the spirituality of the Human Race. Peace and Unity are the foundations of the Spiritual Way of Life of our peoples. But Peace and Unity are not companions to Injustice.

We call upon all the peoples of the world to join with us in seeking peace, and in seeking to ensure survival and justice for all indigenous peoples, for all the earth's creatures, and all nations of the Earth.

We will take whatever steps necessary in the protection of our Sacred Mother Earth, and the rights and well-being of our peoples.

We will continue our efforts before the World Community to regain our inherent Human and Sovereign Rights."

End of position paper.

The Longest Walk started in Feburary 1978 in San Francisco, California across the United States and arrived in Washington DC. mid- july 1978. Indian nations from across North America participated in the Longest Walk to draw attention to the U.S. governments legislative bills to aborgate all treaty rights and destroy all indian nations in the U.S. We all gathered at Washington D.C. to protest these bills and prevented them from being passed into law. Three ancient Indian governments of North America issued a joint position paper titled: "Statement to the people of the U.S. and the World". This is what you just read. As you can see, nothing is new about what the Canadian government is trying to do to the indian people of Canada today, August 2021. The Canadian and U.S. governments treat and deal with the Indigenous people of north america in the same way- genocide.