September 8, 2013
United Nations Human Rights Committee Secretariat
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
CH 1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Attention: Kate Fox/Sindu Thodiyil
To: The Members of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, 109th session
Re: Review of the 4th Periodic Report of the United States
Statement of Gary Harrison, Traditional Chief, Chickaloon Village [Alaska]
I am writing on behalf of the Peoples of the Chickaloon Village of the Athabascan Nation as their Traditional Chief. My role as an Indigenous Leader is to ensure the full and complete enjoyment of human rights for everyone in our community.
The Taking of Alaska and Article 1 of the ICCPR
Questions for the United States from the Committee:
1. Where did the United States get the Title to Alaska?
2. When are they going to reinstate Alaska to the decolonization list?
This report is submitted pursuant to Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), further to the upcoming review of the United States by the Human Rights Committee and the Fourth Periodic Report of the United States under the ICCPR.
This report explains why the United States did not purchase Alaska nor have the right to use plenary power to carry out assumed and continued domination of Alaska.
I am also writing this report to request that the Committee recommend that Alaska be re-instated on the decolonization list so as to facilitate commencement of the decolonization process in Alaska as originally intended under Article 73 of the Charter of the United Nations.
In 1787, the United States Constitution was ratified, and Article VI (2) states as follows:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. (emphasis added) [1]
In September of 1821, the Russian government established
special maritime rules limited navigation in the ocean around the Aleutian
Islands and the Alaskan mainland coastal waters. These rules implied a claim of
sovereignty over Alaska by the Russian government [2]. The governments of the United States and Great Britain immediately
protested these rules [3]. The
Russian government deliberately refrained from making any claim based on the
Doctrine of Discovery. Russia had not
discovered nor had they conquered Alaska – in fact, the Russian forts were
burned on mainland Alaska, including those in Nulato, Kustatan and Kenai [4].
An important historical document from this time, the Kostlivtzov
Memorandum, stated: “the need for the protection of the Inhabitants of Alaska
because spoliators would take their possessions and depredatory working out of
the riches as well on the surface and as in the womb of the earth. To civilize
the savages offer them material comforts, luxury and religion.”[5]
Article VI of the 1867 Treaty of Cession stated that Russia was only selling what interest it had in Alaska. All they had was a monopoly for trade with the other countries – the Indigenous Peoples did not sign a treaty or make any similar agreement related to land [6].
At some point, the US inquired of the Russian Government as to just what the US had purchased from them in the Treaty of Cession. The Russian response was that the Kostlivtzov Memorandum was descriptive of what had been purchased and sold under the Treaty of Cession. It said that Russia did not own Alaska, but that they owned a fort on Kodiak and a fort at Sitka, with a few redoubts and various temporary trading posts on the mainland.
The US became the “spoliators”!
The Treaty of Cession was NOT made with the Indigenous Peoples of this land!
The Matanuska-Susitna Valley in Alaska is part of the original homeland of the Ahtna Athabascan Indians. It was first explored by Russians in 1818. In 1935 as a part of the “New Deal” (a series of US domestic economic programs), 200 families from the US mid-west travelled to Alaska, comprising the first settlers of the Matanuska Valley Colony. The City of Palmer, Alaska was established on the homeland of Athabascan Indians. In 1880 a trading station was built, and the area was subsequently settled by gold miners in 1913 [7].
Alaska is, and historically has been, a source of immense wealth for the United States. Resources such as fur, gold, silver and other extractives have been the main revenue generators over the decades.
During World War I, coal was extracted to fuel the Pacific Fleet. That was when the US Navy came to Alaska. Their arrival brought crime, alcohol, disease, devastating environmental damage and destruction (including the decimation of salmon, caribou and sheep) which impacted my Peoples in Chickaloon, and forever changed our ways of life.
At the end of World War II in 1945, the United Nations was established with the United States being amongst the first to ratify the UN Charter. In fact, the United States took a leading role in the creation, structure and development of the United Nations. The Charter of the United Nations established in Chapter XI (Articles 73 and 74) the principles that continue to guide United Nations decolonization efforts, including respect for self-determination of all peoples.
The United Nations Charter also established the International Trusteeship System in Chapter XII (articles 75-85) and the Trusteeship Council in Chapter XIII (articles 86-91) to monitor certain Territories, known as “Trust” Territories [8]. As a charter member, the United States was to decolonize their claimed territories. Alaska and Hawaii were both on the list of the “Trust” Territories, neither was annexed in accordance with the UN Charter, now internationally established law.
In this submission, I will speak to Alaska exclusively. The UN Charter under Chapter XI (article 73) lays out the sacred trust and the obligation to promote to the utmost: the well-being of inhabitants; culture; and to the peoples concerned, their political, economic social and educational advancement; just treatment; and protection against abuses.
To date, none of this has been accomplished.
In 1959, there was a vote taken for Alaska statehood. The Indigenous Peoples were prohibited from voting by law. That law required that in order to vote, the individual concerned had to speak and write in the English language. There was an additional (reprehensible) requirement that five (5) white people verified through documentation, that the individual was “competent” to vote [9]. Statehood was the only thing that was on the ballot. There was no option to vote for free association, independence, nor commonwealth – these options should have been on the ballot. The military was at this time, and unfortunately continues to be, allowed to vote in local elections in Alaska even though they are mostly residents from other claimed states or countries [10]. Throughout this period, the US did not provide any reporting on decolonization processes – they simply sent communication declaring that the conversion of Alaska to “statehood” under the United States was a fulfillment of the requirements set out in the UN Charter under Chapter XI (article 73).
A decade later, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971 was passed. The language used in the text of this legislation had the intent of destroying the true legal and political identities of the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska. Two examples of the tools to accomplish this was the “corporatization” of Indigenous communities, and the forcible taking or transfer of Indigenous children away from such communities. Both of these actions taken by the US Government qualify as a “genocidal act” under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted by Resolution 260 [III] A of the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948) and the United States Genocide Convention Implementation Act [11].
Now I am witness to corporations attempting to assert,
exercise and have recognized the same rights as Indigenous Peoples, except without
all the responsibilities that ought to accompany those rights.
There is a blatant disregard of the sacred
trust that the US agreed to abide by under the United Nations Charter Chapter
XI Article 73 – in so doing, they are disregarding the rights of Indigenous
Peoples. US and Alaska laws deprive Indigenous Peoples of their subsistence
rights under the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
For instance: on fishing, the subsistence rights come after the commercial and
sports fishing and the subsistence rights should be FIRST. Mining, oil and gas
exploration and development are first priority above subsistence hunting,
fishing and gathering and it should be the other way around.
Meanwhile, the non-renewable resources continue to be plundered, to the detriment of the environment, traditional food and waters. Foreign and so-called domestic corporations are extracting these resources from the surface waters like streams, groundwater in aquifers, and other extractions from our lands, hills, mountains and valleys – defiling waters as they go and endangering the communities’ source(s) of drinking water. “Spoliators” are digging into the womb of Mother Earth.
I look forward to Alaska being re-instated on the decolonization list so the United States can uphold its true sacred trust as originally intended under Chapter 11 Article 73 of the Charter of the United Nations and with this action it can fulfill Article 1 of the ICCPR. The United States can then stop the use of Plenary power doctrine to deprive the Indigenous peoples of their Human Rights, responsibilities and resources, be they social, cultural or physical (i.e., land, water, air, fish and other animals, etc.).
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[1] U.S. Const. art. 6, §2
[2] Senate Document No.152, 81st Congress 2nd Session 1950, Library of Congress, at page 7 para. 5
[3] Id., page 8 para.1
[4] Id., page 8 para.3
[5] Appendix 3 of Senate Document No.152, Translation of Russian Memorandum marked A.A. by B.N. Buynitsky, second to last para.
[6] Treaty of Cession, 1867 (15 Stat.539) Article VI
[7] Basic historical facts, which may be found in numerous historical and academic texts, and is also available on Wikipedia, accessed online (09-8-13 at http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska)
[8] See the following link to the list of Trust Territories, which include Alaska: https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/nsgt
[9] “In the early years of the twentieth century, the burgeoning Alaska Territory passed laws limiting the ability of Alaska Natives to be citizens, to participate in the political process, and to enter certain public establishments. In 1924, when the U.S. Congress conferred citizenship on “all noncitizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States,” the Territorial Legislature responded by enacting a literacy law the next year requiring that “voters in territorial elections be able to read and write the English language.” Alaska’s Constitution, which became operative with the Formal Declaration of Statehood on January 3, 1959, also included an English literacy requirement as a qualification for voting which was not repealed until 1970.” SEE: Natalie Landreth and Moira Smith, “Alaska Voting Rights” (March 2006) accessed online at: www.protectcivilrights.org
[10] R.W. Wade – Personal oral account of non-native uncle and Ernest Gruening, “The Gruening of Alaska”, 1974.
[11] The Proxmire Act is contained in Chapter 50A of the US Law Code Title 18 (Crimes and Criminal Procedure), Part I (Crimes). Section 1091 deals specifically with Genocide. The law implements the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the United States.
