SUPPORT LETTER FROM JEAN LASSALLE, FRENCH MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT & PRESIDENT OF WORLD MOUNTAIN PEOPLE ASSOCIATION

SUPPORT LETTER FROM JEAN LASSALLE, FRENCH MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT & PRESIDENT OF WORLD MOUNTAIN PEOPLE ASSOCIATION

Dear Friends,

As the President of The World Mountain People Association, I wish to express personally and in the name of WMPA my deepest sympathy to your cause and your fight, and also my worries for your health and life.

I, like you, am an inhabitant of mountains and had equally, last year, to go on an indefinite hunger strike to defend the future of the inhabitants of the constituency I have the honour to represent in the French Parliament. I had to strike, in the middle of French parliament, 39 days before my plea was heard, but, finally, I could convey my message of struggle and hope and obtain the necessary measures to solve the problem. Still, the fight is on because Mountains are under constant threat from those who want to take advantage of their resources without any respect for their past, their present and their future. Those who will make any promise to achieve their goal but will keep none when time comes.

We have sent the following letter to the Prime Minister of India, to the Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary and the Governor of Sikkim, and to the concerned ministers in New Delhi to express our very strong support to your struggle. And we have also tried to inform the French press.

We do urge all concerned to do what ever they have to do to keep you alive. And the first of these people concerned are the decision makers who have to stop using fallacious excuses in order to refuse to dialogue with you and have to, at long last, start transparent, honest decision making processes respecting the laws, the dignity of the Mountain People and the integrity of their territories.

I, who have, like you, experienced in my soul and flesh the hardship of expressing our indefectible love to our Mountains and our Cultures, want to tell you that you can count on our unquestionable solidarity and absolute support.

sd/-

Jean Lassalle
Member of the French Parliament
Representative of Pyrenees Range
President of WMPA
(World Mountain People Association)

Read more about

Jean Lassalle , Member of the French Parliament
Representative of Pyrenees Range
President of WMPA
(World Mountain People Association)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Lassalle

Click on the comment link to read the sample copy of the petition letter sent to the various dignitaries mentioned

http://www.actsikkim.com

Official website of ACT

http://www.actsikkim.com

FROM MELBOURNE WITH LOVE......................

FROM MELBOURNE WITH LOVE................................................

There are thousands of people from Sikkim, who are abroad and outside Sikkim. As much as they go out of Sikkim looking for better lives, jobs and greener pastures, they love and miss their home, Sikkim.

We at weepingsikkim would like to thank them for their concern and responsibility towards Sikkim. Thank you!

Chewangmit who is based in Melbourne writes.............................

"Wang Lung the farmer in The Good Earth says, “out of the land we come and into it we must go_ if you hold your land you can live, no one can rob you of land”

Sikkim is a place where anyone visiting it would say that the hills are alive with the sound of music. Nature and people live in symbiotic harmony and this is a place renowned for its natural beauty where rivers cascade in cadence with the hills and valleys. This is the place where the poet would have said ' if there is a heaven on earth, this is it, this is it'.

But now the chimes are no more resounding. The jagged peaks stretch heavenward to try to grapple to something which can help save it from crumbling.

Yes my friends. It’s really sad that the present situation of Sikkim seem to be in shambles. We have been witnessing the Satyagraha for more than a month now but there seems to be no progress whatsoever. Even snails would have reached somewhere by now.

The issue is not about who is protesting for this cause. The real issue here is what the cause stands for. It is to save the little that we have because irreversible damage has already been done.

One fact about Sikkim is that the place is landslide prone. We all experience the wrath of nature when roads become inaccessible during monsoon. We have seen it, experienced it and living it now. So why add more to the misery????

The people who are doing the hunger strike, theirs is the voice of Sikkim. Let us help this voice to reach its goal. If you consider it carefully, they are representing each one of us because the consequences that nature unleashes in its fury will have to be borne by all irrespective of whether that person belongs to any strata in society. That is the law of nature.

Therefore my friends, “if you can keep your head when all around you have lost theirs then you probably haven’t understood the seriousness of the situation”

DAY 43

DAY 43

Dawa Lepcha and Tenzing lepcha who have been on an indefinite hunger strike for the last 42 days were yesterday put on , "Ryle's Tube", - a plastic pipe used for feeding through the nose directly into the stomach much like how Irom Sharmila is being fed.

Although Dawa and Tenzing agreed to this mode of receiving lifesaving nutrition, they continue to refuse oral feed and their strike and protest continues. Thankfully, their lives are no longer in immediate danger.

Dr Namgyal T. Sherpa, a senior medical consultant, STNM Hospital, confirmed that the present option was recommended by him when medical reports on the two youth revealed that their condition was deteriorationg rapidly and the risk of fatal organ failure running high.

He observed that since “both of them had very high level of ketone bodies” which could affect the kidneys, risk of other fatal organ failure and that could lead to “serious complications” any moment, the hospital decided to feed them with the Ryles tube. He also added that till such time that the two started 'eating', they would have to remain admitted in the hospital and their nutrition being provided through Ryle's tube.

Meanwhile the opposition parties submitted a joint appeal to chief minister Pawan Chamling, urging that the state should give up its “adamant” stand and resolve the crisis.Yesterday, the parties had called on Sikkim Governor V. Rama Rao and submitted a memorandum seeking his intervention.

ACT also thanked the Lepchas of Darjeeling hills for organising a peace rally the day before yesterday to express solidarity. “We consider it a valiant effort by our brethren…to save Dzongu and the Lepchas,” the chief coordinator of ACT Tseten Lepcha said.

Source - Now! & http://sikkimnews.blogspot.com