For immediate release                      For more information:
September 29, 1997                         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."