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Buried in Time: BIA Takeover Documents Included Sterilizations, Pine Ridge Uranium, and Water Rights
Buried in Time: BIA Takeover Documents Included Sterilizations, Pine Ridge Uranium, and Water Rights
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Oct. 15, 2024
Buried in Time: When the Trail of Broken Treaties arrived in Washington and took over the BIA headquarters, the documents discovered in the BIA file cabinets altered the course of history. In the caravans from the west coast and northwest were activists from local Indigenous frontline struggles, from Pit River, Survival American Indian, and Alcatraz.
The BIA documents exposed the secret plan of Oglala Chairman Dick Wilson to turn over one-eighth of tribal land over to the federal government for uranium mining. In the ton of documents taken away in a U-Haul, the documents showed proof of the sterilization of Native women by Indian Health Service doctors.
And there was more.
Hidden in these BIA files were the facts about the Winters Doctrine, and the fact that Native American Tribes are entitled to as much water as they need. It is a fact that the BIA wanted hidden. Today, the states and federal government are attempting to do away with the water rights guaranteed in the Winters Doctrine with complex schemes and water rights settlements.
In the BIA files were documents showing land theft and illegal leases of tribal lands across the country. Tribal members in the takeover took these back to their home communities. Those files became the basis of land rights cases in courts in the years that followed, according to Censored News interviews.
The cases of the sterilization of Native girls and women are now well documented. The Indian Health Service targeted traditional full bloods, and a large number of the girls and women were Dine' and Lakota.
BIA Takeover 1972 |
After the documents were discovered at the BIA, it was years before the first release of the information on the sterilizations was made public. It was Akwesasne Notes that first published the facts.
Still today, buried in history, the investigation continues into the role of Oglala Chairman Dick Wilson's plans for uranium mining in the Badlands, and whatever role it played in the imprisonments and murders of Native activists that followed.
Robert Free Remembers Trail of Broken Treaties and BIA Takeover
"At the same time the emerging AIM was going to do a caravan to DC to lobby Congress and show that Native people are the ones who make decisions on their lives. AIM called Suzette Bridges in Frank's Landing and asked if they could join and together merge, and all caravan. It was agreed on and called the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan."
Robert Free (on left) with Sid Mills at Wounded Knee in the spring of 1973, after the BIA takeover in Washington in November of 1972. |
"Russell Means was to fly in with lots of money but showed up with $75, and we had 20 cars and about 100 people from mostly the Northwest, fresh off the shoot-outs at the fishing right camps."
"We called some old friends from the Glide Church Social Change Foundation and were sent $2,000. Then we all headed out."
"Seven other caravans met in Mobridge, South Dakota."
The steering committee made all decisions."
"Three were authorized to speak to the press with the following introduction,
'We are the Trail of Broken Treaties and bring the grassroots people to DC to demand change...etc etc.'"
"But Russ Means and Banks started the press conference by saying, "My name is Russ means or Banks of the American Indian Movement etc etc,' and thus the media focused on those sound bites and they became the famous quoted people. The third person was Sid Mills, Vietnam vet from Yakima, who decided not to say anything."
"Behind closed doors the steering committee made decisions to produce a 12-point solution, strategized the confrontations and bickered about money. As the finance person of the steering committee,I had with Leonard Peltier as my bodyguard secured $66,000 to help our way back to our homes after the government met some of our demands."
"The 6 AIM chapters threatened and secured monies and went home and paid their rent, electric, telephone bills at their chapter offices and then were open for press conferences and other projects. So the Trail of Broken Treaties saved the AIM chapters from being closed down," Robert Free told Censored News.
BIA Files Documented Sterilizations by Indian Health Service
During the six day occupation of the BIA takeover in Washington, the documents were uncovered that revealed a high percentage of American Indian women had been involuntarily sterilized.
"That is where Leonard Peltier's troubles began," Buffy said. Buffy said that few people recount the true history of what happened on that day in history.
"Who recalls that on that day one-eighth of the reservation was transferred in secret -- on that day. It was the part containing uranium. That is what never seems to be remembered," Buffy said.
On the web, the John Graham website states: " .. the US had an eye on developing uranium mining on a portion of the sacred Black Hills, an area known as Sheep Mountain. This area has proven to be one of the richest in uranium deposits in the U.S. The FBI implemented their counter-intelligence operation in Pine Ridge, in order to weaken and destroy the urban Indian movement, and to subjugate the traditional Lakotas for once and for all."
http://www.grahamdefense.org/200411investigatethefeds.htm
Posted on Russell Means' Lakotah Republic website: "In 1975, with his control of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota secured by force, Tribal President Wilson set about ceding uranium-rich areas of the sacred Black Hills to the federal government."
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Zapatistas Call for International Meetings of Rebellions and Resistance 2024 --2025
Call for International Meetings of Rebellions and Resistance 2024-2025. Theme: The Storm and the Day After
October 2024.
The Assembly of Collectives of Zapatista Autonomous Governments (ACEGAZ), the Zapatista communities and the EZLN call on all people, groups, collectives, organizations, movements and indigenous peoples who have signed the so-called Declaration for Life, to the…
International Meetings of Rebellions and Resistances
2024-2025.
White Mesa Ute: 'No to Uranium! Our Community is Not for Sale!'
Photo by Tim Peterson, Censored News |
White Mesa Utes and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe Say “No to Uranium! Our Community is Not for Sale!”
Article by Bradley Angel, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Censored News
WHITE MESA UTE, Utah -- The long campaign by the White Mesa Ute people and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe against Energy Fuels’ uranium mill is heating up. The mill is located adjacent to the White Mesa Ute Community in southern Utah, is the last uranium mill in the United States, and was built literally on top of dozens of sacred and culturally significant sites including burials and ceremonial Kivas.