For immediate release
September 29, 1997

For more information:
Ted Glick, 718-624-7807

NEW YORKERS TO JOIN WITH OTHERS AROUND NATION IN TWELVE-DAY FAST IN OPPOSITION TO "COLUMBUS DAY"

Calling Christopher Columbus a symbol of much that continues to be wrong in the United States, a group of New Yorkers announced today that they will be fasting from October 1 to October 12 while engaging in several actions during that time. The fasters will hold a vigil and press conference in front of the Christopher Columbus statue at 59th and Broadway on Wednesday, October 1, beginning at 4:00 P.M.

On October 8 they will join with others at noon at the Federal Building on Broadway, three blocks north of City Hall, in an International Day of Action Against Peabody Coal Co. Peabody and the U.S. government are engaged in genocidal policies against Dineh (Navajo) people in the Big Mountain/Black Mesa region of Arizona. Thousands have been forced to relocate to the "New Lands" downstream from the largest nuclear spill in U.S. history, contaminated when a dam burst releasing over 100 gallons of radioactive water into the Rio Puerco River.

On October 12th, what they call Indigenous Peoples Day, they will join with Coordinadora 96 in a march from Columbus Circle to the United Nations to demand human and Constitutional rights for all.

Ted Glick, national coordinator of the Peoples Fast for Justice, explained that, "Since 1992 hundreds of people around the country have been fasting and acting locally in support of the rights of indigenous people and against all that Christopher Columbus represents--racism, violence, greed and genocide. We are also calling for the release of political prisoner Leonard Peltier, incarcerated for 21 years for an act the government knows he did not commit, and for an end to the forced relocation of thousands of Dineh people in Arizona because Peabody Western Coal Co. wants their land to make profits. Simple justice and human decency demands an end to these wrongful actions."