Byline Terry Howcott at Terryhowcott.com
Date: Oct 7, 2007 10:14 AM
From: general de los hombres libres CBMR4E
Date: Oct 6, 2007 11:32 PM
Native Americans Arrested While Protesting Columbus Day.
Cuerpo: A group of Native American activists were arrested in Denver, Colorado
for protesting celebrations honroing the genocidal, imperialist killer
Christopher Columbus.
Reuters
Updated: 7:47 p.m. PT Oct 6, 2007
DENVER - About 75 protesters, including American Indian activist Russell Means,
were arrested on Saturday after blocking Denver's downtown parade honoring the
Italian-born discoverer Christopher Columbus, an event they denounced as
"a celebration of genocide."
Police loaded protesters onto buses after they refused orders to disperse. Most
will be charged with obstruction of a roadway or disrupting a lawful assembly,
Denver Police Lt. Ron Saunier said.
Police delayed the parade's start for more than an hour as they tried to head off
confrontations.
American Indian groups and their supporters have disrupted the city's annual
Columbus Day parade every year for nearly two decades, leading to clashes with
Colorado's Italian-American community over the century-old celebration, the
longest-running such commemoration in the United States.
Columbus Day, marked this year on October 8, is an official holiday for most
U.S. federal government workers, many public schools, state and local agencies
and the U.S. bond market. It recalls the October 12, 1492, landing of Columbus
in the Americas on his search for a naval route to India, an event that spawned
an era of European interest in the New World.
Means, talking to Reuters before his arrest, said Columbus was the "first
trans-Atlantic slave trader" after landing in the Americas in 1492. He
said Columbus started centuries of oppression of native peoples.
Some cities rename holiday
"By all accounts, Christopher Columbus was personally responsible for
thousands of deaths of the original inhabitants of this hemisphere," Means
said.
Parade organizer George Vendegnia of the Sons of Italy said his group would
honor Columbus' legacy until the U.S. Congress changed the holiday's name. Some
cities including Berkeley, California, have already changed the name to
"Indigenous People's Day."
"It's a day for us to celebrate our heritage," Vendegnia said.
Parade opponent Glenn Spagnuolo, an Italian-American, said Columbus' legacy
should not be celebrated.
"To honor someone who, by his own writings, was a slave trader, is
immoral," he said. "I don't see any of my Italian culture in
celebrating the occupation and destruction of native cultures."
