Hi everyone-
I'm forwarding this message along because you either live in CO or I think you'd be interested to know what's going on. This may or may not be something you're interested in, but please at least consider the impacts and events- and pass this along to anyone you think would find it valuable.

Johnathan- the one who sent this to me- is a good friend of mine. I lived with him for a few months outside Denver and I can tell you that I fully support what he and his friends are doing. I think this is an extremely crucial event and if I were in CO I would be there to support them in person.

With Peace, Love, Health & Infinite Blessings
Leah

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Forwarded message

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From: Johnathan Yelenick <yelenick@riseup.net>
Date: Jan 15, 2008 4:27 AM
Subject: Columbus Day trials
To: Johnathan Yelenick <yelenick@riseup.net>


My Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

I'm not sure if anyone knows, but last October I was arrested by the SWAT team during the Columbus Day Parade, charged with resistance, loitering, begging and interference. There were 83 other comrades I spent time in jail with after all was said and done. Our trials begin as early as this Wednesday. Our legal team is excellent, including the likes of David Lane (premier criminal lawyer), and seven others who are donating their services to us. Our motions to consolidate cases has not been too successful, yet. And we fully expect this first trial to be pivotal in how the rest of our cases go. First up are my friends Russel Means, Glenn Morris, Julie Todd and Koreena Montoya. Subpoenaed include the unctuous Mayor John Hickenlooper, Denver Chief of Police Gerry Whitman, and Columbus Day parade ringleader George Vendegnia to testify at the trial.

If you have some extra time to be in Courtroom 117M, City and County Building, this Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 8 a.m., I would really appreciate the support. The trials of these people will pretty much set the stage for how the rest of the trials go, mine included. This trial is expected to go for about 3 days total, so if you can't make Wednesday there is still Thursday and Friday. Having the numbers to show the judge and jury that there is support to fight colonial racism will be invaluable.

This is a fight for justice, a fight to rectify the past, to say we won't stand for racism and we won't stand for genocide. I fight for the 200+ Arapahoe and Cheyenne massacred at Sand Creek here on the plains of Colorado by Colonel John Chivington and his 800 US Army soldiers. I fight for the Navajo who were starved and butchered by the madman Kit Carson, the settler militia and the thug calvary of the US Army in their campaign to slaughter whole the ubiquitous buffalo on this short-grass prairie biome with the direct intent to destroy the indigenous way of life; a veritable genocide commemorated with the odious bronze figure of Carson standing outside the west steps of the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver. I fight for the Lakota and Dakota Sioux on Pine Ridge in US claimed South Dakota who to this day remain the poorest and most deprecate of communities in the United States, paradoxically despite the vast mineral wealth that continues to be strip mined and scuttled out of the Black Hills under the auspice of BIA and US Federal gun barrels. A wealth so vast that if it were translated into dollars and given to its proper owners would make the Sioux the most wealthy people per capita on the face of the planet. A wealth so vast that there remains no excuse the average life span of a Pine Ridge Sioux is 46 years old (lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.), that people are dying pervasively of malnutrition and readily curable diseases, that an unemployment rate remains at 90%, that the youth are scourged with suicide. (http://republicoflakotah.com/why.html)

Please join me in solidarity at court starting this Wednesday.
Sparks are gonna' fly. We're going to kick the city's ass all over the court like we've done in the last decades. It's time for Columbus Day to end. http://www.democracynow.org/2006/10/6/challenging_columbus_day_denver_organizers_discuss

Love,
Johnathan Yelenick

P.S. Think you should know who's land you're on? If you're in the Denver area better know its Cheyenne and Arapahoe territory, despite land claims by the US. And there's a big difference between land claims and land rights.

The Sioux have recently issued a decree to the US State Department declaring recision of all Treaties signed with the US. The Republic of Lakota has been established since Dec. 19, 2007. This reappropriates de jure considerable land mass within the contiguous States of Amerika, dismissing it completely from US jurisdiction. http://republicoflakotah.com/index.htm VERY INTERESTING! They are starting to issue liens on government property in the 5-state area.

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American Indian Movement of Colorado
coloradoaim.org
coloradoaim@gmail.com

Transform Columbus Day Alliance
transformcolumbusday.org
info@tranformcolumbusday.org


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:





January 14, 2008



Contacts: Glenn Morris 303-519-2423 gtm303@gmail.com

Carol Berry 303-235-0282 chickasaw303@yahoo.com

Mark Freeland 720-254-7009 mfreeland@iliff.edu



FOUR TRANSFORM COLUMBUS DAY DEFENDERS HOLD COURT THIS WEEK TO PRESENT CASE AGAINST THE CITY

CHARGES AGAINST AMERICAN INDIAN ACTIVIST RUSSELL MEANS REINSTATED

Trial is set to begin Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 8 a.m., Courtroom 117M, City and County Building, Denver and is expected to last three days. Media are welcome to attend.

Glenn Morris, Julie Todd and Koreena Montoya will be in court on Wednesday, January 16, to put Columbus, the City of Denver, and the U.S. legacy of anti-Indian racism on trial. Evidence will support that the city acted inappropriately by ignoring the rights of protestors, applying excessive pain compliance holds on protestors, particularly the women, and permitting an unlawful parade that celebrates the genocide of indigenous peoples.

In a peculiar twist, the city's case against Russell Means, dismissed by Judge Claudia Jordan on January 4, 2008, was reinstated at the request of city attorneys, but all evidence was suppressed against Mr. Means. City attorneys are appealing the Means suppression decision by the judge so that they may proceed with their "vindictive prosecution" and include Mr. Means in the January 16 trial of Morris, Todd and Montoya.

Subpoenas have been issued to Mayor John Hickenlooper, Denver Chief of Police Gerry Whitman, and Columbus Day parade ringleader George Vendegnia to testify at the trial.