The delegation will include Pomo elder Delma Eyle of the Coyote Valley Indian Reservation; Norma Knight, a Maidu-Pomo elder from Round Valley Indian Reservation; Priscilla Hunter, tribal administrator from Coyote Valley, Commissioner of the Native American Heritage Commission and Board member of the International Indian Treaty Council; and Howaste Weighill, of the Coastal Band of the Chumash nation and student organizer at San Francisco State University. The delegation will also include Polly Montoya-Girvin and Carolyn Fershtman, international human rights attorneys, who will collect testimony from Mayan people concerning human rights abuses and their struggle to maintain their land base and culture in Chiapas.
We will be collecting computers, typewriters, medical supplies, and blankets, which we will transport overland from northern California. We will collect financial donations to purchase food in Mexico , which we will deliver directly to Mayan villages and refugee camps. We will purchase the food in Mexico to minimize transportation costs and to support the Mexican village economy seriously threatened by the recent passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
We will be donating the truck used in the caravan and the computer equipment to the recently formed State Council of Indigenous and Campesino Organizations, a coalition of over 280 grassroots organizations in Chiapas.
"We are going to deliver aid Indian nation to Indian nation," says Priscilla Hunter. Delma Eyle says, "This place (Chiapas) is where we are supposed to be. The ancestor spirits of this continent have been calling us to help the people suffering in Chiapas, Mexico and the cries of the people of Chiapas have touched us. We are already there in our spirits and our hearts."
"The Mayan people of Chiapas and my people here in the US are in the same struggle for defining our sovereignty rights. Their future as well as ours depends on our two peoples' strength that can ensure a future for our children," says Eyle. Norma Knight, Maidu-Pomo elder, says "I am going in a spiritual way, with my rosary and my medicine bag to meet with Indian elders there to pray for an end to the suffering."
WE NEED:
¥ Financial donations (which are tax deductible). Checks should be made payable to "Rural Institute-IPCC", and mailed to PO Box 73, Redwood Valley, CA 95470;
¥ Computers, typewriters (electric and manual), Spanish language software;
¥ Medical supplies (stomach and respiratory medicines for adults and children, water purification and first aid);
¥ Blankets;
¥ Trucks and vehicles in good working condition to leave in Chiapas;
¥ People to join us, if you have a vehicle and can cover your expenses;
¥ Help with fundraising and publicity.
For further information, you may call Priscilla Hunter at (707) 485-8723.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1998
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited