Article and photos by Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
On Censored Blog Talk Radio today, Mohawk Nation News publisher Kahentinetha Horn speaks on the crimes of arrests of Indigenous Peoples at the southern border. Ben Carnes, Choctaw, tells of his own life, and the life and death of Standing Deer in relation to Leonard Peltier. Bahe Katenay of Big Mountain shares the truth of Navajo relocation and the destruction of sacred Navajo lands.
Kahentinetha, and MNN editor Katenies, were beaten by Canadian border guards in June, after this int
erview. Kahentinetha suffered a heart attack in a police stresshold and is now recovering. Both women, Mohawk grandmothers, have filed suit.In the radio interview, Kahentinetha describes how Mohawks were on the Tohono O'odham Nation on the US/Mexico border, during the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas.
Kahentinetha said Mohawks were shocked to see the Tohono O'odham Nation government officials working in complicity with Homeland Security to arrest Indigenous Peoples. She also describes how Mohawks stood in solidarity with Indigenous women and children and attempted to halt the Border Patrol from arresting them, near where the border wall was under construction on Tohono O'odham Nation lands.
Ben Carnes, Choctaw, speaks on his life.
Carnes speaks on Standing Deer's life and death in relation to Leonard Peltier.
In prison, Standing Deer was asked to be a government informant and "neutralize" Peltier. However, Carnes
said after meeting Peltier in prison, Standing Deer realized what Peltier was doing for his people, maintaining the culture.Carnes said Standing Deer told Peltier about the "assassination plot." Standing Deer told Peltier that he had planned to kill Peltier to get his own freedom. Peltier said, "Thank you for telling me my brother."
Standing Deer said, "It was at that point I came back to my people."
Standing Deer was murdered, stabbed to death, in Houston after his release from prison.
Carnes said, "My first thought was the government had fulfilled its promise of killing Standing Deer if he ever revealed the plot."
On the radio show, Bahe Katenay of Big Mountain talks of Navajo relocation, truth and resistance on Black Mesa. Katenay was a walker on the Longest Walk 1978 and joined the Longest Walk 2008 in Colorado.
Katenay describes the role of Peabody Coal and the media in the so-called Navajo Hopi land dispute. He explains that the Navajo tribal government is basically a board of directors and does not represent the Navajo people.
Bahe tells how Navajos have suffered because of relocation. Navajos were relocated from Black Mesa to New Lands, Ariz., downstream on the Rio Puerco, the land contaminated by the Church Rock, NM, nuclear spill.
On Black Mesa, coal mining and the depletion of the water continues.
"The land is still being torn up.
"A lot of our sacred springs are gone."
The relocation of Navajos
, orchestrated by Arizona Congressmen and Peabody Coal thirty years ago, has generations of victims.Bahe said the young people have been separated from the elders.
But, he said, "We are still there.
"Thirty-five elders have stood to disrupt America's progress there," Bahe said.
Bahe said Dinetah is where the Holy People emerged, in what is known as northwest New Mexico. Ancient Navajo songs originated there. Today, the area is desecrated by the oil and gas drilling of corporations, with the Navajo Nation planning a new power plant, Desert Rock, in the region.
Bahe remembers the early Navajo protests of the desecration in Burhman, NM, in 1980. Bahe tells how the Navajo warriors who challenged this destruction were all dead shortly after the protests. This fact has been censored.
Bahe said the Navajo Nation government just attempts to "show its good face" and play politics when it voices opposition now to uranium mining. He said the Navajo Nation government has not cleaned up the unreclaimed uranium mining tailings in many areas, including those contaminating Navajo land and water at Cameron, Ariz. There are 50 radioactive areas and the Navajo people have to haul their water.
The interviews were recorded in southern Colorado on the Longest Walk 2 northern route by Earthcycles in March of 2008.
Listen at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Brenda-Norrell
Photo 1: A delegation of Mohawks and representatives of Derechos Humanos at the border south of Sells, Arizona, during the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas. Photo Brenda Norrell
Photo 2: Ben Carnes with Earthcycles radio producer Govinda Dalton on the Longest Walk in the Rockies, speaking on this interview, March 2008. Photo Brenda Norrell
Photo 3: Bahe Katenay on the Longest Walk2 northern route in Pueblo, Colorado, March 2008. Photo Brenda Norrell
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