Winona LaDuke on Hugo Chavez (From Indian Country Today)

Indianz.Com. In Print.
http://www.indianz.com/News/2013/008825.asp 

Winona LaDuke: Hugo Chavez committed to indigenous people
Monday, March 11, 2013
Filed Under: Opinion | World 
More on: hugo chavez, venezuela, winona laduke
    
      Activist Winona LaDuke pays tribute to the late Hugo Chavez, the former president of Venezuela: 
        I was a great admirer of Hugo Chavez, thankful for his generosity, his courage, his leadership, and his commitment to Indigenous peoples. 

        My first memory of Venezuela, being an American educated child, was dim. But, I do remember pictures of Native people in the Venezuelan jungle being gunned down, and hanging like deer from trees- the result of gold prospecting in their territories. The year was 1977. That is a stark image- one where humans are treated like game animals, and I have never forgotten it. 

        So, when the first Indigenous president (Hugo Chavez' mother was a Wayuu Indian woman) came to lead Venezuela, I, like many other Native people celebrated our ascension to power and recognition. For the first time, we had some basic dignity, and subsequently a vote and inclusion in the constitution and a host of cabinet positions. 

      Get the Story:
      Winona LaDuke: A Song for Hugo Chavez (Indian Country Today 3/10) 
     
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

I have always lived and worked in the Borderlands.

See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded in Fall 2012. Photos. Material on our Native
background.) 

See the new and expanded/updated edition of my very well-reviewed 
"Organizer's Book" -- the inside story of the massive Jackson
Mississippi Movement, the murder of Medgar Evers, and more.
And with my new and very substantial introduction:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm