Dispossessed Ojibway Band Deplores Middle East Violence

Melinda Gopher, Press Secretary

Great Falls, MT-- A band of non-recognized Ojibway, the Meggazee - Asiniweyin Ojibway Confederated Band, the major division of descendants of the original Rocky Boy Band are distressed and express alarm due to the escalation of Middle East violence and urge all Native Nations to pressure the United States government to immediately cease bombing of Afghanistan.

Instead, the band sees the need for the United States to focus on assisting Middle Eastern nations to make their own countries secure through non-violent diplomatic means, if peace is truly the objective. However, the Ojibway see parallels in the current Middle East instability and the colonialism practiced by white Eurocentric cultures in North America for the past 500 years and observe the U.S. has ulterior motives in beginning the bombing campaign. The response to the September 11 attacks required a measured and reasoned response and is now being used as an excuse to further U.S. military aggression throughout the world.

The band also sees dangerous parallels in the military alliances the U.S. has built with the global anti-terror coalition and the alliances the colonial government built with their predecessors over two centuries ago. History has shown indigenous nations who enter into these military alliances are often being groomed for conquest and land and resource thievery by the American government, as this was the outcome for the Ojibway.

The band sees dangerous times ahead for the Muslim people who are caught between U.S. sponsored governmental oppression and terrorism. This was a situation native groups encountered the past several centuries and were often labeled "heathen savages." This labeling of racial groups is an ancient form of racism that was the precursor to racial profiling. Today the label "terrorist" is often used to vilify Muslim people and to justify state sponsored and exported racism by the U.S. government. The September 11th bombing is a terrifying sign of things to come if the oppressed and dispossessed people of the world feel there is no alternative to the abuse of authority and military aggression of superpowers such as the United States.

The U.S. foreign policy is frighteningly racist and threatens world peace. This racism can only be justified as conquest and colonization of the Arab Middle East with its vast stores of oil. More military aid has been gone to Israel throughout history than any other country. Israel’s own aggression and stepped up violence against the Palestinians has greatly increased in the past week and it is patterned after and also shielded by the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan.

The Ojibway are pressing the need for the indigenous nations of the world to create an alternative body to the United Nations which is a sponsor of white conquest and colonization. This is a sham body that has only fueled white capitalism and racism at the expense of the indigenous nations the world over, the Ojibway conclude.

For Press Distribution. October 24, 2001.