Indigenous Uranium Forum Denounces Mining, Militarization, and Hate Crimes in Indian Country

Submitted by rick on 6 November 2009 - 1:43pm

Brenda Norrell | November 4, 2009

Indigenous
Peoples from Bolivia, Alaska, and throughout Indian country gathered at
the 7th Southwest Indigenous Uranium Forum and told the same story:
Uranium mining is a hate crime in Indian country.

"Leave it in the ground," said Native Americans whose parents,
brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles died from cancer, respiratory
diseases, and brain tumors resulting from uranium mining.

With uranium prices climbing, new uranium mining permits are
soaring in Indian territory. Today, at least 10 uranium mining
companies have targeted this area of Mount Taylor in the Greater Grants
Mineral Belt: Rio Grande Resources Corp., Strathmore Minerals
Corporation, Urex Energy Corporation, Laramide, Ltd., Neutron Energy,
Inc., Max Resources Corporation, Western Energy Development
Corporation, Uranium Resources, Inc., Uranium Company of New Mexico,
Energy Metals Corporation, and Quincy Energy Corporation.

The 7th Southwest Indigenous Uranium Forum.
Photo: Brenda Norrell.

Over 250 representatives of Pueblos, Navajos, and other indigenous
peoples gathered at the Indigenous Uranium Forum Oct. 22–24 in Acoma
Pueblo, New Mexico. The gathering had the dual purpose of sharing
experiences in the fight against uranium mining on native land and to
protect nearby Mount Taylor, considered a sacred mountain and the site
of recent hate crimes against Native Americans after Mount Taylor was
designated a Traditional Cultural Property by the state of New Mexico
in 2009. Among those arriving from the four directions was Winona
LaDuke, from the Anishinabe nation in Minnesota. LaDuke urged
indigenous peoples to be proactive in their battle against uranium
corporations. Supai Waters, Havasupai, spoke of the need to protect
sacred mountains and canyons from the onslaught of destruction to
ensure the balance of the world.

Acoma Pueblo activists Manny Pino and Petuuche Gilbert welcomed
Indigenous Peoples to their homeland. The forum was also viewed by
80,000 viewers in a live stream video broadcast and later in archives.

Pueblos and Navajos told of the grim legacy of uranium mining in
the Grants Uranium Belt and on the Navajo Nation, beginning with Cold
War uranium mining. Although the United States government knew of the
dangers of radiation, Pueblos and Navajos were sent into the mines
without protective clothing. Carletta Garcia of Paguate Village, Laguna
Pueblo, told the story of her mother, Dorothy Purley, an ore truck
driver who died from cancer. Garcia told how the radioactive dust from
the Jackpile Mine covered their food, resulting in cancer for the
people of Laguna Pueblo and their neighbors at Acoma Pueblo.

Native Americans in the United States were not the only victims who
succumbed to the U.S. energy policies that lured American Indians into
the mines under the guise of patriotism and nationalism. Navajos'
relatives in the north, the Dine' in Canada who are also Athabascan,
have also suffered the often fatal consequences of uranium mining in
Saskatchewan and elsewhere. With the promise of jobs, came a trail of
radioactive waste, poisoned water, contaminated food sources, and
widespread deaths from cancer.

In Red Valley, Cove, and Monument Valley, Arizona, cancer and other
diseases from uranium mining have claimed the lives of hundreds of
Navajos living in the Navajo Nation. The United Nuclear Corporation's
tailings spill at Church Rock, NM on July 16, 1979, poisoned the lands
and water of Navajos and continued to do so as it flowed down the Rio
Puerco stream into Arizona. The Eastern Navajo, organized in the local
group Dine' against Uranium Mining, have spent their lives, and their
meager resources, fighting the uranium corporations in federal court,
resulting in decades of court battles with little relief.

Although the Navajo Nation government banned uranium mining in
2005, new uranium mining targets the checkerboard land areas and public
lands on the border of the Navajo Nation. Navajo water and land would
be contaminated by these new mines and operations. In the Grand Canyon,
Denison Mines is threatening to reopen an existing claim in the area of
the Havasupai's sacred Red Butte, at the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

While the mining companies claim the new in-situ uranium mining is
safe, Navajo and Havasupai point out that an accident or spillage while
drilling could contaminate the water supply of thousands of people.

Elsie Cly Begay (on left) at
the Indigenous Uranium
Forum in Acoma Pueblo.
Begay's family story is told
in "Return of Navajo Boy."
The documentary reveals her
family members who died from
cancers and brain tumors from
uranium mining at Monument
Valley on the Navajo Nation.
Photo: Brenda Norrell.

Elsie Cly Begay from Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation told how
she still lives on the land alongside an abandoned uranium mine that
claimed the lives of her mother and two children from cancer and brain
tumors. Begay's story is told in the film, "The Return of Navajo Boy."

Begay, who travels on speaking tours with the film, tells of the
horrors of uranium mining and death at the only home she knows. "We
still live there," she said, after the film that chronicles her
family's tragedy.

The strewn radioactive waste from uranium mining in the Black Hills
in South Dakota has been shrouded in secrecy. Charmaine White Face,
Oglala Tetuwan and coordinator of Defenders of the Black Hills, points
out that both the Badlands region in South Dakota and Navajo land in
the Four Corners were declared National Sacrifice Areas in 1972 by
executive order and targeted for increased mining.

White Face said there are more than 1,000 abandoned open-pit
uranium mines and more than 10,000 abandoned exploratory uranium wells
in the northern Great Plains, resulting in extensive pollution.
Radioactive dust goes into the air and runoff pollutes the water and
land. "People don't know how polluted the water, air, grass,
everything, is in our region," White Face said.

White Face said state leaders in South Dakota are attempting to
conceal the facts about the dangers of radioactive waste contamination,
because they fear it will affect tourism. Mount Rushmore is within 20
miles of the Badlands on Pine Ridge Indian land.

White Face said the U.S. government seized Lakota lands in the
Badlands for a bombing range during World War II, displacing families,
including her family. The land was confiscated and 210 Oglala families
were given 10 days to leave. They were made homeless. Most were women,
children, and elderly, since many of the men were in the military. They
were ranchers, leaving behind their means of survival.

Today active bombs remain in the Badlands in the World War II
bombing range and the region is strewn with radioactive waste from
uranium mining. The impact of the bombs in the bombing range also
exposed naturally occurring uranium in the earth. "As long as you don't
touch it, it is fine. Just leave it alone," she said. White Face said
her people have lived there for thousands of years and never had the
cancers or birth defects they have today.

Now, Canadian-based PowerTech Uranium Corp. is planning new uranium
mining in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado. Lakotas are also
fighting Canadian-based Cameco Corp. in federal court over in-situ
uranium mining in Nebraska. With the cost of cleanup for the existing
radioactive uranium mining in the billions of dollars in the Plains
alone, White Face said the United States must clean up the existing
damage before granting permits to new uranium mines. Currently, there
is a campaign urging the Obama administration to issue a moratorium on
uranium mining until all of the abandoned uranium mining is cleaned up.

It was copper mining in Arizona that ruptured the earth and
contaminated the groundwater and soil of the Tohono O'odham with
uranium. As Indigenous Peoples gathered in Acoma Pueblo for the forum,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that Cyprus
Tohono Corporation agreed to spend $6 million to investigate the
contamination, about 30 miles south of Casa Grande, Arizona.

The cleanup is too late for the Tohono O'odham who died from cancer
in this cancer cluster. Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, came to the
Indigenous Uranium Forum to learn more about the contamination and
cancers left behind by the results of Cyprus mining. Rivas is founder
of O'odham Voice against the Wall, opposing the militarization of her
homeland by U.S. agents and the construction of the border wall that
became a barrier to annual sacred pilgrimages and resulted in the
digging up of the remains of O'odham ancestors.

Rivas said the new information on the uranium contamination comes
as Tohono O'odham struggle against the ongoing oppression of the U.S.
Border Patrol, other federal agents, and tribal police that swarm their
homes. Meanwhile, Tohono O'odham are now fighting the planned Rosemont
copper mine, 30 miles southeast of Tucson, mining that could destroy
sacred places in the Santa Rita mountains.

Fighting "Environmental Racism" and "Energy Terrorism" and Defending the Earth

Chris Peters of the Seventh Generation Fund said the corporations
are relentless. The majority of the abandoned uranium mines are on, or
near, indigenous lands. It is environmental racism, he said, pointing
out that if these mines, with radioactive waste, were located elsewhere
they would have been cleaned up. The Seventh Generation Fund supports
grassroots projects, ranging from Native farming to media projects.

Winona LaDuke, Anishinabe, and
Norman Patrick Brown, Navajo
activist and filmmaker, at the
7th Southwest Indigenous Uranium
Forum. Photo: Brenda Norrell.

Navajos are not just battling new uranium mining. Throughout Indian
country, there are layers of exploitation and destruction. Navajos in
the northwest corner of New Mexico in the Four Corners are also
fighting a proposed new power plant on the Navajo Nation, Desert Rock.

Already this region is contaminated by Cold War uranium mining, two
existing power plants, and hundreds of oil and gas wells. Navajo
activist Bahe Katenay from Big Mountain points out that this area near
the city of Farmington is the sacred region of Dinetah, the Navajo
place of origin. Katenay said the U.S.-installed Navajo tribal
government was created by the U.S. government to sign energy leases and
is now a "puppet" government of the United States, resulting in
widespread contamination to this sacred region by coal mines, power
plants, and oil and gas drilling.

At the Indigenous Uranium Forum in Acoma Pueblo, Faith Gemmill
arrived from the far north and the lands of the Gwich'in in Arctic
Village, Alaska. In Gemmill's homeland, uranium mining, drilling, and
catastrophic climate change threaten the way of life of the Gwich'in
and the fish, animals, and birds of the Arctic. Gemmill is executive
director of RED OIL, Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous
Lands, which works toward sustainable economies for Native communities.

Gemmill said living the way of life in a subsistence culture is not
just about what one eats, but involves ceremony and thankfulness.
Gemmill described how a Native community in northwest Alaska, where the
people depend on clean water and salmon, is targeted for uranium
mining. She said the key is to empower Native people to take on the
corporations, resist and halt mining.

"Energy terrorism," is what is happening in Alaska. "We have to
live the old ways. Our way of life is based entirely on the land." This
way of life is threatened by energy exploitation, said Gemmill, who has
struggled to protect the calving grounds of the caribou from oil and
gas drilling.

Louise Benally of Big Mountain, Arizona, resisting relocation in
her Navajo homeland for over 30 years, spoke of her recent visit to the
Arctic. "My heart was so broken, I got sick. I'm still sick," Benally
told the gathering at Acoma Pueblo. "We all are from the earth and we
have to defend it in any way that we can," she said. Benally questioned
how people could destroy a land as beautiful and bountiful as the
Arctic.

Benally spoke of farming and the health benefits of eating one's
own locally grown food, during her presentation on Food Sovereignty.
She said climate change is obvious to farmers. This year some of the
corn was popped inside its husk, male flowers matured a month before
the female flowers, which must cross pollinate, and the bees did not
come.

She said the people must return to the earth and to their medicine
and songs. When it comes to the coal mining company Peabody Coal that
orchestrated the so-called Navajo Hopi land dispute for coal mining on
Black Mesa, and the corporations now intent on new uranium mining,
Benally said bluntly, "It is greed." Referring to the monsters foretold
by Navajos, she said George Bush was one of the "monsters" who has
manipulated the world.

"They never say the military is overspending and that is why the
people are hungry and there's no jobs out here. They will never admit
that, but that is what the problem is—war, war and greed," Benally said.

Jihan Gearon, Navajo with the Indigenous Environmental Network,
cautioned those attending not to allow corporations to "greenwash" the
climate change agenda. Gearon said people in the United States are
being led to believe they can pay their way out of climate change, with
commercial offers. "They believe they can buy their way out of climate
change."

Carbon trading is not the answer. Under the guise of carbon
trading, corporations have seized the lands of Indigenous Peoples, she
said. Gearon urged Indian people to continue as the standard-bearers
who do the right thing.

The legacy of uranium mining in Indian country is the legacy of
death. Still, young student filmmakers, Navajos from Shonto, Arizona,
are educating themselves and others about the dangers. Twenty of the 37
filmmakers from Shonto Preparatory School's middle and high schools
attended the forum and screened their film on the impacts of uranium
mining on the Navajo Nation.

Charmaine White Face, Oglala from South Dakota,
and Louise Benally, Navajo from Big Mountain,
at the 7th Southwest Indigenous Uranium
Forum in Acoma Pueblo. Photo: Brenda Norrell.

Orleta Slick, film producer working with the students to preserve
Indigenous languages at the Media Center, said the video shown at the
forum was a combination of film projects looking at the current debate
over coal vs. uranium as energy sources. Just days after the Indigenous
Uranium Forum concluded, the New Mexico state government announced
approval of a uranium mining project that could further poison Navajo
water.

Navajos considered it a slap in the face. According to the company
Uranium Resources, the state of New Mexico's Mining and Minerals
Division approved its request to renew its permit for uranium
exploration in McKinley County, despite vast evidence of environmental
damage and human suffering presented just days earlier at the
Indigenous Uranium Forum.

The permit allows Uranium Resources to drill as many as 10 holes in
preparation for in-situ uranium mining. It is a process that Navajos
living nearby said could poison their water supply, in the same area as
the devastating Church Rock uranium tailings spill.

Native Americans and peoples from as far away as aboriginals in
Australia noted that they faced the same corporate bullying, division,
and bribery tactics from uranium mining companies. One of the largest
and most active uranium mining companies, the Canadian-based Cameco
Corp., routinely targets the territories of Indigenous Peoples in the
United States, Canada, Australia, and Central Asia.

Cameco is the same company that received a secret shipment of 500
tons of yellowcake from Iraq in 2008. It was secretly transported by
the U.S. military, using U.S. taxpayer dollars, and became public when
the shipment reached Montreal, before delivery to the purchasing
company, Cameco. Michaela Stubbs from Melbourne, Australia represented
the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance at the Acoma Pueblo forum. The
Alliance is a network of Indigenous and others who share skills and
strategies to campaign against nuclear development in Australia. "It's
been amazing to be here, meet people, and strengthen international
links," Stubbs said.

"The tactics used by multinational corporations on the Indigenous
Peoples here—division, bribery, and bullying—are the same tactics used
in Indigenous communities in Australia. We need to find the resources
to connect, support, and strategize together. If we can accomplish that
on the grassroots level, I believe we can shut 'em down."

Longtime Navajo activist John Redhouse spoke of the hate crimes
against homeless Native Americans in the area of Grants. Redhouse said
the racially motivated beatings occurred after Mount Taylor was
designated a Traditional Cultural Property. One of the attackers said
the beating was because of the designation to protect Mount Taylor.

"As an old civil rights activist and veteran of the border town
wars in Gallup and Farmington in the early 1970s, I don't think these
beatings are an isolated incident. I think they are directly related to
a non-Indian backlash against the Traditional Cultural Property
designation and what it means in terms of protecting and defending our
sacred mountain from more uranium mining and milling," Redhouse said.

When Redhouse was on the New Mexico State Advisory Committee to the
U.S. Civil Rights Commission in the late 1970s, the Commission made a
similar connection with the rise of anti-Indian groups in Grants and
northwestern New Mexico and growing Indian resistance.

Gathered at the Indigenous Uranium Forum with Redhouse were
activists who have been fighting uranium mining and its legacy of death
all their lives.

Redhouse compiled a history of the decades old resistance and
remembered the first efforts of Navajos to fight uranium mining here on
Pueblo lands. Redhouse remembered the first gathering to protect Mount
Taylor from uranium mining in 1979. "Bahe Katenay, Roberta Blackgoat,
and other youth and grandmother warriors were at the First Mount Taylor
Gathering. They walked all the way from Big Mountain."

The route to Acoma and Laguna Pueblo from Navajoland is the same
route that Navajos were forced to walk on the Longest Walk to Bosque
Redondo, NM. Many died from the cruelty and starvation and others were
murdered by U.S. soldiers on the walk and during the imprisonment at
Fort Sumner.

Native Americans said the legacy of oppression by the cavalry
continues today as uranium mining corporations seize lands bordering
Indian communities and sacred lands for uranium mining. State and
federal regulatory agencies, and politicians urging the proliferation
of new nuclear power, are complicit in this crime against humanity.

Brenda Norrell is a freelance writer and Americas Program border analyst, www.americaspolicy.org. Her blog can be found at http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/.

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