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Titusville, Florida
The Issue
AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT OF FLORIDA
136 4th Street North Suite 308
Saint Petersburg, FL 33701
Phone 727-826-6960
Fax 727-550-2207
Email: AIMFL@aol.com
Web Page:http://members.aol.com/Aimfl
National Web Page http://www.aimovement.org
Contact: Sheridan Murphy or Mark Madrid At AIMFL@aol.com, or David Narcomey at Dnarcomey@aol>com or Lisa Visconti at wolves5149@aol.com
For Immediate Release
PRESS STATEMENT
FLORIDA AIM DEMANDS HALT TO DESECRATION OF TITUSVILLE INDIGENOUS CEMETERY
Titusville, FL- The American Indian Movement of Florida (Florida AIM) has demanded the Brevard County Sheriffs Office insure the protection of a heavily looted and imperiled Indigenous cemetery in north Brevard County known as Indian Station.
Indian Station has been known as an Indigenous cemetery to the state of Florida since 1867 when the site was desecrated and looted for the first time. This Indigenous cemetery has suffered various desecrations numerous times since. On April 19th, 2003 members of the Brevard County AIM Support Group (Brevard AIM SG) and some local amateur archaeologists joined with Keep Brevard Beautiful in an effort to clean up the illegal dumping that had occurred on the property for an extensive period. In doing so Brevard AIM SG members and the local amateur's noted and recorded extensive looting at the site that has occurred for an extended period. The site was littered with hoses and other materials used by the grave robbers in their ghoulish looting.
Florida AIM has become increasingly frustrated by the abject lack of protection afforded Indigenous cemeteries in Florida. The state law supposedly enacted to protect Indigenous burial sites has never been used to prosecute the grave robbers who have acted with impunity.
Florida AIM had demanded the Brevard County Sheriffs Office take immediate action to protect this Indigenous cemetery as state and federal law purportedly state they should.
In order to respect the living, one must respect those who have gone before. Florida AIM demands that Indigenous peoples at least be afforded the right to rest in peace in our own homeland. Yet we know this right is not even acknowledged for, let alone afforded to Indigenous peoples. We therefore are prepared to take whatever action necessary to protect this Indigenous cemetery. In 1990 Mohawk peoples were forced to take up arms against the Canadian Army to protect an Indigenous cemetery in Oka, Quebec. In 1992 Florida AIM occupied the Moog Midden/Yat Kitischee Indigenous cemetery conducting armed security patrols for four (4) months to bring massive looting at that site to a halt.
Florida AIM always prefers the dialogue of cooperation to the rhetoric of confrontation. We sincerely hope the Brevard County Sheriffs Office and other local law enforcement agencies and offices will afford Indigenous peoples the same dignity and respect they afford all peoples. We can not, and will not continue to tolerate the looting, desecration and disrespect afforded this Indigenous cemetery. These ancestors deserve the right to rest in peace and not have their final resting places disturbed by ghoulish recent immigrants who have no respect for the First peoples of this land. And we are prepared to insure that they are afforded that right by any means necessary.
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To email the Brevard County Sheriffs Office
james.stiles@sheriff.co.brevard.fl.us
or write Brevard County Sheriffs Office
700 Park Ave
Titusville, FL 32780
and demand full protection of the Indian Station Indigenous cemetery.
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