No Olympics on Stolen Land!

No Olympics on Stolen Land Great Lakes & East Coast Tour 2008

RESCHEDULED TORONTO TOUR DATE:
Tuesday, February 12th 7:00PM
Sidney Smith Hall (University of Toronto)
100 St.George Street

NOTE: Signs will be posted with the room number at the building entrances

FEATURING

Kanahus Pellkey (Native Youth Movement)

With the 2010 Winter Olympics scheduled to occur on unceded Coast Salish, St’at’imc and Squamish territory in two years, the spectacle surrounding them continues to wreak havoc on Indigenous people, poor people, and the Earth. In the spirit of resistance to colonialism, with the 2010 Olympics as a main target, Kanahus Pellkey of the Native Youth Movement and Native youth Dustin Johnson are touring throughout the Great Lakes and East Coast in January and February 2008.

“By them choosing to have the Olympics here, it’s opening up our land, our sacred sites, our medicine grounds,” says Kanahus Pellkey. “We want investors to know our land is not for sale.” Pre-Olympic fever occupies the province of BC, and the economic excitement has massively accelerated gentrification and the building of highways, resorts, and condos. The construction of infrastructure for the 2010 Olympics itself is adding to extensive destruction of traditional homelands of the local Indigenous peoples.

In October 2007, more than 1500 Indigenous people representing communities across this hemisphere held the Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of America, on Yaqui territory in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico. They stated in their final declaration, “We reject the 2010 Winter Olympics on sacred and stolen territory of Turtle Island– Vancouver, Canada.” This speaking tour is strengthened by this momentum, and by the knowledge that hundreds, if not thousands of Indigenous people now plan to attend the Olympic Games, not in celebration, but in resistance to the danger the Olympics poses to indigenous lands, identity, culture, health, livelihoods, and to future generations.

The Native Youth Movement is a Movement of Native youth that works to revive traditional knowledge and inspire Native youth to defend their Peoples and Territories.

Kanahus Pellkey is a Secwepemc and Ktnuxa Warrior and a spokesperson for the Secwepemc chapter of the NYM. She has been jailed before for fighting against the illegal occupation and theft of Secwepemc Lands for the Sun Peaks ski-resort, and is active in opposing the 2010 Olympics.

Endorsed by: OPIRG-Toronto, No One Is Illegal-Toronto, OCAP, CUPE 3903, First Nations Solidarity Working Group, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid

For more info, email: opirg.toronto@gmail.com or nooneisillegal@riseup.net

OTHER TOUR DATES 2008:

Hamilton …Wednesday, Feb 13
CONFIRMED: Feb 13 – 11:00AM @ Sir John A MacDonald High School,
McMaster University: Feb 13 – 7:30

Six Nations
Peterborough
Tyendinaga
Sharbot Lake
Kingston
Akwesasne
Kahnawake
Kahnasatake
Ottawa
Montreal
Penobscot
Portland
Boston
Binghamton
Ithaca

PLEASE HELP TO DISTRIBUTE THIS INFO

Kukwstsetseme/Nia:wen/Nya:weh/Miigwetch/Thank-you

For further information on this cause please visit:

www.no2010.com

www.2010watch.com

nooneisillegal.org

————————–

MONTREAL – Kanahus Pellkey says if aboriginals have their way, the 2010 Winter Olympics will not be all fun and games.

She and Dustin Johnson, two members of the Native Youth Movement from British Columbia, brought that message to Montreal Thursday.

“The world is not welcome to our territories,” Pellkey told reporters during a news conference held at the Olympic Stadium, the main site of the 1976 Summer Games.

“This is all stolen land, here as well as on the West Coast.”

Pellkey pointed out that her father attended the opening ceremonies in Montreal in 1976 to also protest against the Olympics. The pair say they are visiting Central Canada and parts of the United States to raise awareness about opposition to the Olympics in Vancouver and the negative effects of holding the Games.

“We’re travelling around bringing awareness to the issue that indigenous people are continuing to fight for their land and freedom,” she said.

Pellkey said natives also are calling for an international boycott of the 2010 Olympics and all corporations that are involved in sponsoring the events.

“The Olympics are about money, the corporate sponsors are about money, everything is about money, but native people remain the most impoverished people in the land.”

She and Johnson have already visited a half-dozen native and non-native communities in Ontario and plan to be in Ottawa on Friday.

The Native Youth Movement also says the construction of infrastructure for the Olympics is adding to extensive destruction of traditional homelands of the local indigenous peoples.

Marcel Sevigny, a Montreal housing rights activist, said what is happening in Vancouver brings back memories of what occurred in Montreal before the 1976 Summer Games.

“The occupation of native land in British Columbia by organizers of the Olympics reminds me of the scandals that took place in Montreal where several hundreds of families were forced out of their homes because of the Montreal Olympics,” he said, referring to expropriations that took place to get land to build facilities.

Sevigny said he wasn’t surprised real estate agents and promoters were trying to make a big profit to the detriment of the local population and natives in British Columbia.

“Here in Montreal (in 1976), it was to the detriment of very poor families in Montreal who were trying to find lodging. . .it seems to be the same thing, Olympics after Olympics.”

Original article at:

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jwpN1E6HIQ7kKdukuNKfFA2vP03A”>http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jwpN1E6HIQ7kKdukuNKfFA2vP03A