Mr. Cabrera, an expert on environmental issues, fails to realize that Pew is an external organization so foreign and far removed from any legitimacy to make any claims against our ancestral rights to our land and sea. These gifts were fully protected by our forefathers for centuries. We’re not ready to surrender any of them now. Nor are we prepared to accept Mr. Cabrera’s pernicious illusion on the matter. Now, let’s dissect what each respective organization espouses.
Pew’s agenda (to which Mr. Cabrera is an advocate) seeks to force acquisition — via outright surrender — of land and sea by the rightful owners. Wow! What profound or rapacious contempt to rob our children of what’s theirs. It wants total disposition of indigenous properties as though it actually owns them since time immemorial. It’s even foolhardy to probe our history to determine if Pew was ever a part of our cultural traditions. Ownership to these properties rightfully rests with the indigenous people.
The agenda of the Indigenous Rights group is to protect and prevent, at any and all cost, the potential loss and exploitation of indigenous land and sea. We’re especially determined to do so to prevent Pew from claiming what belongs to us. Its wish to exploit them solely for its own pecuniary gains is very obvious and so riddled with contradictory strands in its hollow justification. Interesting how Pew has employed “culture” as its Trojan horse. Sir, the land and sea are ours! None of them belong to the captains and crew you salute daily at sunrise and sunset as their fearless pawn.
Even more egregious is the unsolicited humiliation you would have subjected our children to over the long term. Where’s your sense of compassion and justice for our children when you’re attempting to forcibly relegate them to involuntary indignities: ask permission to use what is theirs in the first place? Sir, we are not prepared to embrace unintended consequences because you’ve failed to understand the cultural significance of what our forefathers have fought to preserve since centuries ago.
I can’t see where Pew is part and whole of the ancestral rights that only belong to the indigenous people. Now, are you saying that we’re incapable of the disposition of indigenous land and sea? Your intransigent refusal to acknowledge your own ancestral tradition speaks volumes of your character and glowing integrity. Are we supposed to be utilitarian on our own islands in perpetuity? Please reset your compass of our ancestral rights to protect what’s ours!
Our ancestral rights to the land and sea up north and their subsequent disposition are an indigenous prerogative that cannot be morally, legally, spiritually, infringed upon or alienated. Hope this is clear and let’s try to strike a happy medium where you join our group in our collective efforts to protect what is solely the property of the indigenous people.
HERMAN TUDELA
Traditional Fisherman
