Treaty Violations during COVID-19, & Chiapas Resistance to the Mayan Train

American Indian Airwaves

Thursday, 7/2/2020, on American Indian Airwaves, 7pm to 8pm (PCT)- Listen at: http://www.kpfk.org “Colonial Legacies of Treaty Violations and Failed Trust Responsibilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Chiapas Resistance to the $8 Billion-dollar, 948-mile Mayan Train. Part 1: With rising COVID-19 rates across “Indian Country,” in major urban areas with large urban Indigenous populations, and despite passage of The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in which Indian Health Services (HIS) received in April 2020 its last funding installment of $367 million out of $1.032 billion allocated, both Native American health facilities and IHS operations are still critically underfunded. In fact, with the United States (U.S.) government passing the CARES Act, the U.S. is paying closer to .23 cents from approximately .16 cents on the dollar for its treaty obligations. Guests: Stacy A. Bohlen (Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa Nation), Chief Executive Officer of the National Indian Health Board, joins us for a brief update on how COVID-19 is impacting “Indian Country,” reveals some of the hardest hit Indigenous Nations NOT reported in the media, articulates the massive infrastructure deficit in Indian Health Service operations and Tribal Health facilities resulting from perpetual failures of the U.S. government’s trust responsibilities with federally recognized Native Nations, plus more. Click on The National Indian Health Board COVID-19 tracker for a COVID-19 update. Francys Crevier (Algonquian First Nation), executive director, National Council of Urban Indian Health, a Washington D.C.-based organization representing 74 urban Indigenous health facilities, joins us for a brief update on how COVID-19 is impacting large urban Native American populations, the systemic lack of proper resources needed for urban Indian organizations, plus more. Part 2: In early June 2020, Mexico’s President López Obrador officially inaugurated the construction of the $8-billion, 948-mile Mayan Train high-speed railroad, an infrastructure project that will begin in Palenque in Chiapas, travel northeast towards to Cancun in Quintana Roo with two routes encircling the entire Yucatan Peninsula link cities, including Mexico City, and towns in five southeastern states or the entire Yucatan Peninsula for tourism, transportation, and economic purposes. The Mayan Train project commences in the heart of the traditional territories of the Mayan people in Chiapas and the “Project” is opposed by Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Guests: Richard Stahler-Sholk, Professor of Political Science at Eastern Michigan University, joins us for this segment of the program to discuss how Mayan Indigenous peoples have been mobilizing and resisting the proposed construction of the Mayan Train, the political and environmental devastation the “Project” will cause, the rise of the ECO-Tourism industry perpetuating greater and more romanticizing stereotypes about the Mayan peoples and Chiapas, and the political consequences and successes from resisting construction of the Mayan Train project, plus more. American Indian Airwaves regularly broadcast Thursdays from 7pm to 8pm (PCT) on KPFK FM 90.7 in Los Angeles, CA; FM 98.7 in Santa Barbara, CA; FM 99.5 in China Lake, CA; FM 93.7 in North San Diego, CA; FM 99.1 KLBP in Long Beach, CA (Thursdays 5pm-6pm); WCRS FM 98.3/102.1 in Columbus, OH, and streams live on the Internet at: www.kpfk.org and on Apple ITunes. Archived American Indian Airwaves programs can be heard here: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/american-indian-airwaves/ (60-days only). American Indian Airwaves is also available on https://soundcloud.com/burntswamp (up to one-year). American Indian Airwaves podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn.