Winnemucca Paiute and Shoshone Remain Evicted from Homes -- Denied Justice by Inter-Tribal Court of Appeals

Paiute and Shoshone Elderly and Disabled Remain Evicted from their Homes by the Disputed Tribal Council

Inter-Tribal Court of Appeals of Nevada Denies Request For Stay

Water Protector Legal Collective
Sandra Freeman, Staff Attorney

communications@waterprotectorlegal.org

Nevada Protector Legal Services
Alexandra Rawlings, Directing Attorney, Indian Law Project and Farmworker Project
arawlings@nevadalegalservices.org
December 29, 2022

WINNEMUCCA INDIAN COLONY, Paiute and Shoshone lands, Nevada, U.S.A — After the Winnemucca Tribal Court summarily evicted the Elders and other Residents without a trial and banished several others on December 2, 2022, the Intertribal Court of Appeals of Nevada (ITCAN) heard oral arguments from attorneys from ​​Water Protector Legal Collective (WPLC) and Nevada Legal Services (NLS) requesting to stay the eviction and banishment orders entered at summary judgment by the tribal court, and set the matter for a hearing on December 15, 2022.

Dine' Warn Navajo Council of Rare Species and Dangers of Helium Mining Targeting T’iis Názbąs Community

 

Dine' in T’iis Názbąs, Teec Nos Pos, warn the Navajo Nation Council of the dangers of helium mining, the presence of a rare plant species, and the threat to local water sources

Dine' community members here, in the Four Corners Region of the Navajo Nation, said the helium wells would be drilled in a residential area and the studies by the Navajo Nation Oil and Gas Company are outdated.

Zapatistas Journey for Life through Europe featured in 'La Montana' in World Premiere

Diego Enrique Osorno with commanders Galeano and Moíses. (Facebook / Diego Enrique Osorno)

Zapatistas' Journey for Life through Europe featured in 'La Montana' in World Premiere in Netherlands

La Montana, a new documentary of the Zapatistas' Journey for Life through Europe, will be featured in its World Premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, January 25 -- Feb. 5, 2023. Filmmaker Diego Enrique Osorno was onboard when Zapatistas sailed across the Atlantic from the coast of Mexico, arriving in Spain.

Diego Enrique Osorno)

Quien reports:

The Mexican filmmaker, writer and journalist, Diego Enrique Osorno, will present his recent documentary project, La Montaña in the Harbor section of the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

La Montaña, is the title of this project, which follows seven Mayan indigenous people who belong to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, known as the EZLN, on their journey across the Atlantic Ocean while recounting their stories of resistance in the mountains of Chiapas.

https://www.quien.com/cultura/2022/12/21/la-montana-el-nuevo-proyecto-de-diego-osorno-estrenara-en-roterdam

https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2023/

Danny Blackgoat Soars to Spirit World

Danny Blackgoat, son of Roberta Blackgoat, longtime resister to relocation and government oppression, soars to Spirit World

Danny's wife Liz Blackgoat said, "It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my beloved husband, Danny Blackgoat. He left this world sometime Sunday night, Dec 18. His transition to spirit occurred on the land, at the place that he loved the most."

Danny K. Blackgoat passed away peacefully on Monday, Dec. 19, 2022, at the age of 70. He was born in Dinnebeto and grew up in the Big Mountain area. He attended Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, completing his bachelor’s degree.

Lakota Joye Braun and Ukrainian Climate Scientist Honored with Bold Activism Award

Joye Braun and Svitlana Romanko, Honored with Rose Braz Award for Bold Activism

2022 Award Goes to Ukrainian Climate Scientist, Late Indigenous Pipeline Fighter

By the Center for Biological Diversity
Dec. 22, 2022

Censored News

OAKLAND, Calif.— The Center for Biological Diversity today awarded the 2022 “Rose Braz Award for Bold Activism” to Svitlana Romanko and posthumously to the late Joye Braun.

Romanko is Ukraine’s leading climate scientist and a grassroots climate campaigner. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, she founded Razom We Stand and launched the Stand With Ukraine campaign with more than 820 groups. It calls on world leaders to end their fossil fuel dependence on Russia and phase out fossil fuels globally.

In the Quechan battle against lithium mining at the Salton Sea, songs carry sacred origins

Preston Arrow-weed led the battle against gold ming here on Quechan sacred land, and now battles a new monster, lithium mining, driven by corporate greenwashing for electric vehicles

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

It is a sacred place for Quechan, where obsidian burst from the earth, their sacred stories come from here. When the U.S. government and county targeted the sacred place for lithium mining, they did not tell the Quechan Nation.

Preston Arrow-weed, who has just fought gold mining at Indian Pass, began the battle to protect the sacred here near the Salton Sea, in Imperial Valley, and where the borders of California, Arizona, and Mexico meet.

Arrow-weed said, "We must learn from the past. What good is it to replace dirty oil with dirty mining? The toxic cycle will continue. Indigenous communities will continue to be sacrificed for the 'greater good.'"

Quechan songs carry the story of their journey, and the sacred place now targeted for lithium mining near the Salton Sea, where the obsidian burst from the earth, and here are the remains of a powerful snake.

"We have a belief that something sacred happened there," Arrow-weed said at the recent Western Mining Action Network Conference in Reno, Nevada.

Paiute and Shoshone Elders Evicted from their Homes in Winnemucca Indian Colony, Nevada

Photo courtesy Neweneen Sokopa Camp

Police blocking entrance to Paiute
and Shoshone to return home at Winnemucca
Indian Colony.

Paiute and Shoshone were evicted from their homes in winter by a disputed tribal council and banished, many with no place to go. Kyle Missouri was tasered, arrested, and now jailed while attempting to return home.

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Updated Dec. 17, 2022

Translated to French by Christine Prat

https://chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=7571

WINNEMUCCA INDIAN COLONY, Nevada -- In a cruel action during winter, the Winnemucca Tribal Court evicted Paiute and Shoshone elders without a trial, and banished people from their homes with no place to go in northern Nevada. Elders' homes and possessions have been burned and demolished, and utility lines cut, attorneys said.

"They are living in motels right before Christmas, and it is heartbreaking," said Kyle Missourii, who was arrested and tasered as he returned to his home, where he grew up, which is owned by his 88-year-old grandmother. Kyle is now in jail.

The Winnemucca Tribal Court ruled for the disputed Tribal Council without giving elders and residents the benefit of a trial. The tribal court ordered most elders and residents out of the homes they have lived in for decades by Friday, December 9, attorneys said.

Paiute Elder Resident JJ Ayer said, “I am of seven generations of Native people that have lived on the Winnemucca Indian Colony. This is wrong in every way, most of us are disabled and old with no other home but here and now we are banished from our land.”

Paiute and Shoshone elders said the tribal council, led by a chairwoman who does not live here, and provides inconsistent claims of being Native American, have brought in a demolition business from Kingman, Arizona, to destory their homes.

Navajo Government Joining Australian Company to Devastate Hualapai Sacred Land for Lithium Mine

Hualapai Walk for the Sacred Opposing Lithium Mine

Navajo Government Joining Australian Company to Devastate Hualapai Sacred Land for Lithium Mine

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

December 10, 2022

The Navajo Nation's "energy transition office" plans to operate the lithium mine that will devastate Hualapai's sacred spring used for healing since time immemorial. In a deal with the Australian company, Vern Lund, the CEO of the Navajo office in Farmington, N.M., would join the lithium company's board.

The lithium mine will deplete and poison the water on Hualapai sacred ancestral land in northwest Arizona. Hualapai elders point out their sacred plants and the animals will be poisoned.

"It will destroy what is important to our people," said Ivan Bender, Hualapai caretaker at the sacred spring Ha'Kamwe. "Every living thing needs clean water."

Already, Navajo Transitional Energy Company has invested Dine' money in a Texas company mining rare metals, and operates the Navajo Mine, three coal mines in Wyoming and Montana. It owns a percentage of the coal-fired Four Corners Power Plant on the Navajo Nation, among the worst polluters in the world.

Arizona Lithium, a subsidiary of Hawkstone Mining in Australia, said that the Navajo Transitional Energy Company will take over the operational development of Big Sandy, managing everything from permitting requirements to a definitive feasibility study and mine construction, under the terms of the deal.

Hualapai said carving an open pit mine into the earth would devastate the aquifer that feeds Ha’Kamwe, a sacred spring that the Hualapai people have used medicinally since time immemorial.

WASHINGTON: Greater Chaco Protectors Rally Congress for Environmental Justice

Greater Chaco Advocates Travel from New Mexico to call on Congress for environmental justice for Greater Chaco

D.C. Premiere of Our Story: The Indigenous-Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco

Delegation Statement

Censored News

Translated into French for Censored News

by Christine Prat

https://chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=7561

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A delegation of Indigenous community leaders and Greater Chaco protectors traveled from New Mexico to Washington D.C. to lobby members of Congress for Greater Chaco protections, and premiere a film screening of the award-winning Our Story: The Indigenous Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco (film trailer) which showcases the threats the Greater Chaco Landscape and its communities face from continued oil and gas leasing and drilling.

Greenwashing -- Biden, Haaland and the Navajo Nation's Runaway Train: Oil, Gas, Coal and Lithium

 

Ha ‘Kamwe is a hot spring sacred to the Hualapai Tribe in Northern Arizona. An Australian company is threatening the spring with a proposed lithium mining project.

The Green Hoax -- Biden, Haaland and the Navajo Government's Runaway Train: Oil, Gas, Coal and Lithium

Brenda Norrell

Censored News 

While President Biden and Interior Sec. Deb Haaland push for more oil and gas wells and fracking in the Greater Chaco region -- the Navajo Government's "Navajo Transitional Energy Company" is pushing coal mines, and now plans to join an Australian company to devastate the sacred land of the Hualapai with lithium mining. 

Lithium, in demand for electric vehicle batteries, is part of the fake green solutions to climate change.

Flying under the banner of energy transition, the Biden administration and Navajo Nation are pushing the most polluting and devastating drilling and mining on earth.

The Climate Trace map revealed at the U.N. Climate Summit in Egypt shows the San Juan, N.M., oil and gas fields, and Navajo power plants and coal mines, are among those polluting the world's air, emitting greenhouse gases causing global warming, and poisoning the air and causing respiratory illnesses.

The Navajo government's energy transition team is operating four coal mines and a power plant, and invested in a Texas company mining rare earth minerals.

'NO' to Man Camp in Greater Chaco for Oil and Gas Industry's Sexual Violence of Indigenous

Rio Arriba County, New Mexico

Tribal Leaders, Indigenous, and Environmental Groups Call on Bureau of Land Management to Reject “Man Camp” in Greater Chaco Landscape

Man camp would increase oil and gas impacts and risk of sexual violence and trafficking for Indigenous communities in the region

Contact: Cheyenne Antonio, Greater Chaco Coalition, c.antonio40@gmail.com
Robyn Jackson, Diné C.A.R.E.,robyn.jackson@dine-care.org

Translated into French for Censored News by Christine Prat

https://chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=7567

FARMINGTON, New Mexico -- A coalition of Tribal leaders, Indigenous organizations, and environmental groups sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) urging the agency to reject a proposal by Logos Operating to build a “person camp” in the Greater Chaco Landscape for the purposes of expanding oil and gas extraction.

The letter pointed out that person camps, or “man camps” as they are more commonly called, are known to put Indigenous women, girls, and persons at increased risk of experiencing sexual violence and trafficking. The proposed camp would also exacerbate the health and cultural resource impacts from oil and gas extraction that communities in the Greater Chaco Landscape are already facing.

'Protected' Status Locks People Out -- Instead Strengthen Indigenous Rights to Protect Biodiversity

© Nathalie Weemaels

A better way to protect biodiversity: strengthen Indigenous rights

The designation of heavily-guarded 'Protected Places' does little to strengthen biodiversity. Instead, strengthen Indigenous rights as guardians, say Indigenous of Africa and Asia at COP 15 in Montreal. The 'Protected' goal means evicting Indigenous Peoples.

by Rainforest Rescue (Rettet den Regenwald e.V., Germany), WALHI South Sulawesi, WALHI Papua, Aceh Wetland Foundation, Pusaka, Save Our Borneo, Kaoem Telapak (Indonesia), Devcon, WATER, RRDC (Nigeria), RIAO-RDC, CAMV (Democratic Republic of the Congo), synaparcam (Cameroon), TASHA (Uganda), TEST (Tanzania), SADIA (Malaysia)

December 8/9, 2022 

Censored News

HAMBURG/MONTREAL -- The German NGO Rainforest Rescue (Rettet den Regenwald e.V.) delivered a petition with more than 65,000 signatures to the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. The petition is sharply critical of the UN’s proposal to place 30 percent of the world’s land under protection by 2030 (“30 by 30”).

Rainforest Rescue Co-Chair Marianne Klute: “While putting 30 percent of the planet under protection is tantalizing in its simplicity, it is a dangerously flawed concept. It assumes that nature can only be protected by keeping humans out. Displacing the local population for “30 by 30” would impact 300 million men, women and children, many of them Indigenous people.

"This would amount to evicting the most effective guardians of the rainforest in the name of conservation. Whether protected areas do anything for nature is questionable: Their number has skyrocketed, but biodiversity is still collapsing. Instead of falling back on outdated concepts like heavily guarded national parks, this conference must strengthen the rights of Indigenous people.”

'They Pay No Royalties Here, Nor There' -- Steve Melendez, President American Indian Genocide Museum

Homestake Gold Mine, South Dakota

They Pay No Royalties Here, Nor There 

When it comes to ownership of the natural resources of the world, what was once "we the people," has become "we the super-rich of the world."

By Steve Melendez

Reno Sparks Indian Colony

President, American Indian Genocide Museum

Censored News

I just heard Dr. Young's sermon today Dec. 8th on "Using your gifts". Dr. Ed Young is the Senior Pastor of Second Baptist Church here in Houston, Texas He talked about the income disparity in South America and how there was no middle class.

"Chick-Fil-A," where everyone benefits is the Christian model! This sounds good but the American Model is the Doctrine Of Discovery -- the 1823 Supreme Court decision of Johnson v. M'Intosh that said the Indigenous people lost title to the land when Columbus discovered it!

This law is still on the books and the reason the government does not honor treaties. It is also why these multi-national mining companies do not have to pay royalties to the federal government. The General Mining Law of 1872 says anyone who "discovers" a "valuable deposit" on "unappropriated federal land" may purchase title for a nominal charge.

Uranium Mine Gearing Up Near Grand Canyon -- Havasupai Urge Ban

.

Uranium Mine Gears Up Near Grand Canyon National Park

Senate must pass permanent Grand Canyon mining ban before 117th Congress ends

By Grand Canyon Trust

Censored News

December 7, 2022

Translated to French by Christine Prat

https://chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=7567

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Arizona – The Pinyon Plain Mine (formerly Canyon Mine) appears to be gearing up for uranium mining operations fewer than 10 miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Hundreds more uranium mines could eventually be developed on federal public lands near Grand Canyon National Park if the Senate fails to pass Senate Bill 387, the Grand Canyon Protection Act.

Operators of the controversial uranium mine recently posted a job ad on Craigslist to recruit new miners, after its owner announced a deal that could ramp up operations at the mine as soon as 2023. Increased activity has been observed inside the mine fence.

Justice Demanded in Death of Abbey Lynn Steele

Statement on the Death of Abbey Lynn Steele

By Tribal & Community Organizations and Concerned Individuals

On Friday, December 2, 2022, 20-year-old Abbey Lynn Steele of Rapid City, South Dakota died at Monument Hospital after arriving unconscious and not breathing from the Pennington County Jail on November 16th. The Native community of Rapid City is grief-stricken and outraged by Abbey’s untimely death and the circumstances surrounding it. Abbey had given birth via emergency surgery merely 5 days before her violent arrest, detention, and hospitalization. Her death under the watch and authority of major institutions in Rapid City is an affront to common decency and basic human dignity. Abbey Steele should be alive today. Two children are now without their mother and have lost the opportunity to know her. Our community demands justice for Abbey and her family.

Western Shoshone to White House -- Stop Funding Nuclear

November 30, 2022

Comments to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Committee

Provided by:

Principal Man Ian Zabarte of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians, Secretary of State of the Western Shoshone National Council, Secretary of the Native Community Action Council, 2017 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Appointee to the Licensing Support System Advisory Review Board.

Our country stretched from the Mojave Desert in the south to the Snake River in the north defined by the Treaty of Ruby Valley (Consolidated Treaty Series Volume 127-1863)

Nuclear issues threaten the Western Shoshone People. Radioactive fallout from indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction, secret shipments of plutonium into our country, low-level nuclear waste facilities exploding from rainwater intrusion at the Beatty dump and licensing of Yucca Mountain for high-level nuclear waste repository inflict conditions intended to bring about the destruction of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians. Much nuclear risk we experience has been done in secret and demonstrates ill intent. The US nuclear weapons industry is lawless and unaccountable. The US must join the Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is International Law.

Remembering our Heroes: Reporter Cate Gilles and Dine' Leroy Jackson

Photo by Cate Gilles. Big Mountain and Black Mesa protest at Navajo Nation Council chambers.
Dine' protested the genocide by the Navajo Nation government, which signed leases with Peabody Coal to mine coal and use the water on Black Mesa for Peabody's two coal mines. The Navajo government also signed the lease for the Navajo Generating Station, the coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation near Page, Arizona, that used the coal. The power plant was one of three coal-fired power plants on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico that supplied electricity to Southwest cities that the Navajo government received royalties from -- while many Dine' were left living without running water and electricity.

Remembering our Heroes: Reporter Cate Gilles and Dine' Leroy Jackson

Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Censored News would not be what it is today without the lives, and deaths of two people, news reporter Cate Gilles and Dine' Leroy Jackson. Cate was a reporter covering relocation and Black Mesa and exposed radiation dangers from uranium mining in the Grand Canyon.

Cate was working in public relations for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe when she was found dead hanged by her dog chain. Her death was ruled a suicide. However, just before her death, she told news reporters that she had documents on corruption, involving a casino, that she was taking to the authorities.