#Akwesasne8 DISMISSED. #NewYorkPowerAuthority fails to produce documents necessary to move forward.

By Akwesasne 8, via #CensoredNews, Nov. 12, 2024

"The charges of Conspiracy to a Felony, and #Trespassing against the six of the Akwesasne 8, who appeared today, were dismissed today at Massena Town Court. The District Attorney stated that New York Power Authority (#NYPA) did not produce appropriate documents to move forward

"Researchers for the Akwesasne 8 had gone to the St. Lawrence County Office for Deeds and Records to find a Deed/Land Title showing NYPA ownership. There is no record. When discovery documents were offered to the Akwesasne 8, each asked whether the documents contained a Title to the land on which the Akwesasne 8 were arrested. The District Attorney implied such documents were not part of the discovery packets.

"In March 2022, Federal Judge Kahn of the Northern New York District of US Federal Court, ruled that New York State possession of #Mohawk land is a violation of the #NonintercourseAct which prohibits land transfer of Indian land to non-Indians without Congressional approval.

"On May 22, 2024 eight Kanienke’háka were arrested for Trespassing at #Niionenhiasekówahne (Barnhart Island). Seven of the eight were charged with Conspiracy to a Felony. One person was charged with a Felony.
There is a long history of #Onkwehonwe relations to Niionenhiasekowá:ne (Barnhart Island) - from the Dish With One Spoon Agreement, to Onkwehonwe families living on the island, and continue today through Kanienke’háka assertion of hunting, fishing, tree tapping, and #MedicineGathering liberties.

"The Akwesasne Mohawk #LandClaimSettlement agreement seeks to sever Onkwehonwe relationship to Niionenhiasekowá:ne, formally ceding the island's title to New York State for $70 million and subjecting our hunting and gathering rights to foreign governments.
The Onkwehonwe that began construction at Niionenhiasekowá:ne acted in assertion of Kanienke’háka inherent and original rights as well as the pre-existing governance of Kaienerekowa.

“'The Band Council, Tribe, state and federal governments are outside Kaienerekowa governance as younger governmental entities cannot and will not ostracize us from our lands and waters,' said one of the Akwesasne 8.

"'We are going back to Niionenhiasekowá:ne because it is Kanienke’háka land,' a group of the Akwesasne 8 stated."

Source: https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/11/akwesasne-8-dismissed-new-york-power.html

#LandBack #AkwesasneMohawk #BarnhartIsland #ReaderSupportedNews #NativeAmericanNews #NewYorkState #Kanienkeháka

#Akwesasne is part of the #Mohawk Nation, one of the six nations of the #Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Its residents’ #AncestralTerritory, which includes Barnhart Island, extends across the #Canada - #USA border, and includes parts of #Ontario, #Quebec and #NewYork state. For decades, factories surrounding the reserve dumped now-banned chemicals into the #StLawrenceRiver, #contaminating the land and water. But Barnhart Island is upstream of the contamination — the breeze is still sweet and the water is clear. And soon, Akswesasne #TribalGovernment may sign a settlement agreement with the State of New York, ceding its title to the island forever.

For the #LandDefenders who were arrested, reclaiming #BarnhartIsland goes hand-in-hand with protecting what’s left of their territory that is still healthy enough for them to gather medicine, hunt, fish, conduct ceremonies and heal. They aren’t willing to sell their homeland — not for any price.

Freelance #journalist Brandi Morin and #photojournalist Ian Willms spent five days on the territory in June to document the fight for clean land.
https://thenarwhal.ca/akwesasne-mohawk-monsanto-barnhart-island

#Indigenous #NativeLand #Unceded #Environmental #Pollution #Ecocide #ToxicWaste #TurtleIsland #CDNpoli

#LandBack at #Barnhart:
Contextualizing the Re-occupation of #BarnhartIsland in Shared Legacies of Struggle

From #TurtleIsland to #Palestine, the struggle at #Akwesasne is rooted in the shared struggle of all #OppressedPeoples of the world who are opposing the illogic of #SettlerCapitalism and the endless violation of the #lands and #waters that our current economic system necessitates.

By Jennifer Lee
June 25, 2024

"On May 21, 2024, a group of eight Kanien’kehá:ka (#Mohawk) community members from Akwesasne were arrested at Niionenhiasekowa:ne (Barnhart Island). Certain individuals among the '#Akwesasne8' had originally gone to Barnhart to exercise their right to build a hunting and gathering shelter on their own territory, in part to protest an ongoing land claim settlement that threatens to hand over Kanien’kehá:ka title to this island, among other traditionally held territories, to New York State. The settlement is being negotiated between New York entities and three Akwesasne government councils.

"Presently, the settlement negotiations would require the extinguishment of Mohawk title to Barnhart Island, which would be effectuated through an act of Congress. By asserting their right to the land, the #Akwesasne8 have sent a clear message to both negotiating parties. Barnhart Island, like all other territories illegally stolen and swindled from their community, is not for sale—particularly not by collaborationist band and tribal council entities that purport to represent the full community but that were in fact historically imposed upon it at gunpoint.

"The fact that a group of eight community members was surrounded within just a few hours by approximately 35 police agents (including both border patrol agents and state troopers) is a clear indication of the strategic significance of this island to the interests of settler-capital. As Taiewennahawi (Marina Johnson-Zafiris), one of the eight arrestees, explains in her article 'Akwesasne and the History of #Hydropower,' the Moses-Saunders #hydrodam, located at the east end of Barnhart Island, is one of the many dams along the St. Lawrence Seaway that has supplied 'cheap' electricity to an unending procession of heavily #polluting factories since the 1950s.

"For decades, dirty plants like #Alcoa, #GeneralMotors, and #ReynoldsMetals harnessed the immense power of the #Kaniatarowanenneh (#SaintLawrenceRiver) at the Moses-Saunders dam to manufacture aluminum, a cheap, abundant, and malleable building material that requires vast amounts of power to extract and process. Not only was hydropower-fueled aluminum production critical to New York’s economic development, it was central to the national pride and independence of so-called #Québec. Eager to assert its autonomy from Anglophone capital in the 1960s, the province began damming rivers on #Indigenous land in a frenzy of hydropower nationalism.

"Upstream on the St. Lawrence, the aluminum plants at Akwesasne used a #toxic #sludge containing polychlorinated biphenyls (#PCBs) as a hydraulic fluid during the production process. These PCBs were manufactured by the infamously litigious #corporation #Monsanto, which continues to evade public #accountability for discharging this known #carcinogen into the St. Lawrence River and onto Kanien’kehá:ka soil. The #carcinogenic soup was left exposed on the very grounds where the children of Akwesasne played and where families grew their vegetables. Today, Akwesasne sits downstream and downwind of three heavily #polluted #superfund sites, and residents of Akwesasne report that almost everyone they know has a friend or family member suffering from a rare #cancer, #MetabolicSyndrome, or #autoimmune disorder. Rare, life-threatening illnesses exist at Akwesasne at rates that the public would never consider normal or acceptable in any non-Indigenous community.

"Dana-Leigh Thompson, one of the Akwesasne 8, lived about 3,000 feet from the PCB #dumpsite of the #GeneralMotors (#GM) factory for a decade. She calls what is happening to the community nothing short of an '#environmental #genocide.'"

Read more:

https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/online/land-back-at-barnhart/#easy-footnote-15-16285

#EnvironmentalRacism #Ecocide