Dear editors,
As we seen recently on television, the hostilities between the USA and Cuba have dramatically softened. Over 50 years of sanctions followed a hard fought revolution led by Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara. They overthrew the colonial dictator Fulgencio Batista who was backed by the US empire. Castro landed in Cuba and took back the island for the people, village by village all the way to Havana. When the US backed the Bay of Pigs invasion, Castro personally manned armaments to fight US backed Cubans assisted by US weapons and air support. The Cuban victory led to what the media considers the longest embargo in history.
So what does this have to do with me you might ask? As Onkwehon:we it has everything to do with us. The longest embargo in history isn’t against Cuba – the longest embargo is against the Iroquois Confederacy which is been here beyond all antiquity. Before the inception of the USA, we were just as sovereign as Cuba, and held all the characteristics of a nation under international law. But as colonialism intensified, the USA and Canada have blocked our trade with other nations.
After 50 years of blatant defiance of the US Empire, the colossal grip of this corporate monster let go of the revolutionaries it tried to strangle out of existence. The Cuban people suffered through 50 years of deficiencies and every hardship imaginable. The blockade stopped medicines, auto parts, and all kinds of technology while the US tried to destabilize the country, assassinate their leaders, support armed insurrections, and encouraged treason at the highest level.
One day the settler colonies of Canada and the US will loosen their grip on the throat of the Onkwehon:we people all over the world. This is happening right before our eyes. The shift of the world opinion on indigenous issues is changing to a more positive attitude. It’s definitely the right time to struggle. As we well know, with the destabilization of our mothers in residential school plus the continued destabilization of the missing and murdered women, it’s a war.
We are sending our children into a siege ill-equipped to deal with the evils of the world. Sending sheep to the slaughter instead of wolves to the hunt. We can’t forget who we are.
When they first met us, the Europeans compared our warriors to Spartans. In my humble opinion these wolves could have walked through those Spartans any day of the week because our warriors were taught at the knee of their grandmas with love, not with conquering in mind.
The great peace is coming to fruition. It is up to the Haudeosaunee to nurse back to health the war-torn peoples that have lost their natural way many millennia ago to religion and warfare.
The fever that we call colonialism is breaking after burning hot for 500 years. It has made us sick to the point of death but our mother knows best and she is vibrating faster and faster. Her children hear her call. We must be vocal and teach our sick brothers the Creators’ message of peace.
In love respect and defiance,
Mo Martin
Rotiskennaketi
