Mazurka Talks to gather in support of Indigenous rights at Pack Square, Oct. 25

Press release:

On Wednesday, October 25, 2pm at Pack Square, people will gather and call for #Divest the Globe in support of Indigenous People’s rights, as part of a 3-day global protest by the indigenous-led divestment campaign, Mazaska Talks. There will be actions in over 50 cities in the US and Canada, as well as actions in other parts of the world.

Between October 23rd and 25th, ninety-two of the world’s largest banks are meeting in São Paolo, Brazil to discuss policies on the climate and Indigenous People’s rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. These banks include Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) financiers such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, and others.

Mazaska Talks is a coalition of indigenous groups including: Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, Last Real Indians, Honor the Earth, Indigenous Environmental Network, Sacred Stone Camp, and the International Indigenous Youth Council.

The protests encourage people to divest their households, institutions, and cities from banks that finance projects, such as tar sands pipelines, that desecrate native lands. The protests are supported by many national organizations such as 350.org, Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, some of whom have added their names to a letter promising to boycott the banks until they stop investing in tar sands.

Since the Standing Rock Tribe passed a resolution ending business with Wells Fargo in October 2016, more than a dozen cities, including Asheville, have taken steps towards moving their money out of Wall Street, affecting dozens of billions of dollars in annual cash flow.

Mazaska Talks urges banks to follow the example of BNP Paribas, the second largest bank in Europe, which last week promised to cease all funding of companies whose primary business is tar sands, fracking, or Arctic drilling.

In conjunction with BankTrack’s campaign, the protests draw attention to the failure of the Equator Principles to align with the Paris Agreement and uphold internationally-recognized indigenous rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent in the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Line 3, Keystone XL, Trans Mountain, and other fossil fuel projects around the world.

The demonstrations come two months after the Energy Transfer family of companies sued Greenpeace and BankTrack for supporting the #NoDAPL movement and calling on people to divest from banks financing the Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer received project-level financing for the project by assuring banks they had consulted with the tribe, thus aligning the project with the Equator Principles. Consultation is merely an exchange of information, not consent. Indigenous people have a right to consent, recognized in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Energy Transfer inadvertently admitted the effectiveness of #DefundDAPL divestment campaigns in their SLAPP suit, when saying: “the damage to Plaintiffs’ relationships with the capital markets has been substantial, impairing access to financing and increasing their cost of capital and ability to fund future projects at economical rates.”

“In order to create a better future for our next generation, we must encourage the banks who hold the world’s funds to divest from fossil fuels which destroy the environment. We must stand up and empower ourselves to divest, because divestment is empowerment.” – Ladonna Brave Bull Allard, Founder of Sacred Stone Village, Standing Rock