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MIAMI, FL - The American Indian Movement of Florida (AIM Florida) is the state chapter of the international Indigenous peoples civil, human, treaty and sovereignty rights movement. It has long been the position of AIM Florida that in order for one to respect the living one must respect those who have gone before. Therefore, AIM Florida has since its inception worked on protecting more than one-hundred Indigenous cemeteries in Florida from development as well as grave robbers. AIM Florida finds it repugnant that more than five centuries after the invasion of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus, that Indigenous peoples must fight to even retain the right to rest in peace and have Indigenous cemeteries protected..

AIM Florida has advised the City of Miami that it will not tolerate the development of Brickell Park under any circumstances that lead to any disturbance of any of the burials at Brickell Park. There is no question that if this was a cemetery of almost any other peoples that relocation, study, and/or disturbance of the site would not even be contemplated. AIM Florida demands this site be left alone and will not tolerate anything less. Florida AIM applauds officials who have called for the site to be left alone. We call upon the City of Miami and potential developers to show respect for the Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere by leaving this site protected and alone.