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Reporter's Notebook: Brenda Norrell

Dakota women arrested countering Minnesota genocide

Posted by Brenda Norrell - August 17, 2008 at 12:16 pm

By Brenda Norrell

Dakota women were arrested on Saturday, August 16, 2008 during a counter genocide protest. Dakotas from the Yellow Medicine Dakota Community, with their allies, countered the Upper Sioux Agency State Park's program. The genocide celebration was part of the Sesquicentennial of the state of Minnesota, portraying the 1858 1st Regiment.

Chris Mato Nunpa, retired Dakota professor, said, "My daughter, Waziyata Win, and my grand-daughter, Winuna were arrested. Fortunately, they both were released later in the day.

"It was incredible the amount of armed law enforcement personnel that were there. We had no guns, clubs, knives, etc. We were peaceful and non-violent. To me, it just illustrates the level of racial hatred and fear of the Dakota and of Indigenous Peoples that is present here in southwestern Minnesota and elsewhere throughout the U.S.

"Again, it shows how we as Indigenous Peoples are living in oppression, in this case we are oppressed by their law, their legal ideology which is used to enforce the exploitation and continued oppression of the Indigenous Peoples. They have the guns and the men to enforce their law, even though we were on Dakota land," Mato Nunpa wrote.

"They, the wasicu, have the forums and and freedom of expression. We express our views, the TRUTH, and we get arrested."

Dr. Mato Nunpa, Ph.D., retired, was an associate professor of Indigenous Nations and Dakota Studies at Southwest Minnesota State University Marshall.

Mato Nunpa said the state's celebration reveals nothing about the massive land theft, broken treaties or genocide perpetrated on the Dakota by the Euro-Minnesotans. The state's celebration does not reveal the bounties, mass executions, forced marches and forced removal of the Dakota People from their ancient homelands in Minnesota.

Watch video of arrest of Dakota women:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wcTPQLKGz4

Chris Mato Nunpa: "Dakota exercised their fishing rights on Sunday, July 20, 2008 on Lake Harriet, a lake in the ceded area of our Treaty of 1805."

Watch video of treaty fishing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5kgLcC7afQor

http://www.youtube.com/user/alliesms

More by Chris Mato Nunpa on Minnesota's genocide and concentration camps:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/08/chris-mato-numpa-minnesotas-genocide.html

About Brenda Norrell

Personal Website
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Biography

Brenda Norrell has been a news reporter in Indian country for 27 years. She is currently based in Tucson and covers Mexico, the U.S. borders and the West, focusing on Indigenous Peoples and human rights. She cohosted the five-month Longest Walk talk radio across America, with American Indians walking for sacred Mother Earth and publishes Censored News.

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