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In Canada, the special interlocutor on unmarked graves at former residential schools, says governments should not wait for her report to act.
As Dan Karpenchuk tells us, she is set to table her interim report at the end of the week.
Kimberly Murray (Kahnesatake Mohawk Nation) says there’s a lot that governments could be doing right now.
Murray’s report comes after calls to action in the wake of several discoveries of unmarked graves at former residential schools in different parts of Canada over the past couple of years.
Ottawa appointed her to work with Indigenous people and make recommendations that would help strengthen federal laws to protect and preserve unmarked burial sites.
Murray says there are additional areas of concern that she will raising in her interim report.
“As I continue to meet with survivors and communities I’m hearing more and more of issues and concerns that they’re raising of the barriers that they’re facing as they do the sacred work of finding the children.”
One of the main hurdles she’s found is getting access to documents.
“The ongoing struggle that they have to get full access. Many communities are being given redacted documents or limited documents. The time to get the access to the records are taking a very long time. It can take up to six to eight months for a community to get access agreements in place.”
Murray also says there are concerns regarding access to land.
She says much of the land is privately owned.
Murray was helped to guide Indigenous communities through jurisdictional and legal barriers at burial sites, as well as help with talks with government institutions and churches.
Guatemala’s best-known journalist is scheduled to be sentenced this week in a case international press freedom organizers call a blatant attack against independent journalism in that Central American country.
The recent closing of the newspaper means the loss of Indigenous voices.
Maria Martin reports.
These are dark times for journalism in Guatemala, as the newspaper journalist José Rubén Zamora founded over 25 years is now shuttered and with it, gone are critical voices and the Indigenous perspective not often heard on Guatemalan media.
“Overall in major newspapers, there’s very few Maya voices.”
Historian Maria Aguilar (Maya Quiche) was one of those voices now silenced by the closure of the muckraking newspaper El Periodico.
Hers was one of two regular columns by Indigenous analysts in the paper founded by Zamora, which was forced to close recently due to economic and political pressure from the government of Guatemala.
“You’re losing one of the newspapers with few Maya columnists, but you’re also losing a paper where you had very critical investigative journalist that revealed a lot of the corruption that …that corruption really affected the entire country, and it affected the majority of the population who’s poor and Indigenous.”
Guatemalan prosecutors are asking for a sentence of 40 years for Zamora.
The main house at Dog Iron Ranch, the birthplace of Will Rogers. (Photo: David Stapleton)
The Cherokee Nation on Monday celebrated the acquisition of actor Will Rogers birthplace ranch from the Oklahoma Historical Society, and will reimagine the property for tourism.
According to the tribe, Rogers grew up on the family ranch leaving around 1905 to pursue his Hollywood career.
The home dates to as early as 1873.
It was moved around 1960 to a hilltop and has since been a public historic site.
Today, the property spans 162 acres.
The Cherokee Nation plans to renovate next year.
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