Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

February 28, 2023

Inside the Bunkers: Remembering Wounded Knee


Madonna Thunder Hawk joins Kiowa Lavetta Yeahquo, moderator Robert Pilot, and Wounded Knee attorney Fran Olsen and remembers when Oglala Lakota stood up at Wounded Knee, in a stand that shook the world. Photo Warrior Women Project.

Inside the Bunkers: Remembering Wounded Knee

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

PORCUPINE, Oglala Lakota Nation -- Warrior women of Wounded Knee joined a reporter and an attorney to remember the 71 days of Wounded Knee, from the bunkers to the courtroom. Bullets whizzed by their ears as they resisted the heavily armed GOONS and the U.S. militarized assault on the people.

"Wounded Knee was just a spark, today we have flames," said Madonna Thunder Heart, Lakota, during a panel discussion of the Warrior Women Project on Saturday, during the 50th Anniversary of Wounded Knee in Porcupine on Pine Ridge.

Apache Stronghold Spiritual Convoy to Federal Court, March 12 --- 21, 2023


 

February 26, 2023

Honoring the 1973 Matriarchs of Wounded Knee -- Fourteen Minutes of Power


Women pictured at a rally to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Wounded Knee Occupation on February 27, 1974, at the University of Minnesota. Some 1500 people gathered to hear speeches by Russell Means and Denis Banks, who were both on trial in St. Paul Minn. at the time, for their participation in the takeover. Photo by Cindy Karn

Fourteen Minutes of Power: The Matriarchs of Wounded Knee describe the birth of the occupation of Wounded Knee in a special film release of oral history at the 50th Anniversary of Wounded Knee

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

PORCUPINE, Oglala Lakota Nation --  In a powerful 14-minutes, the Matriarchs of Wounded Knee describe how the Occupation of Wounded Knee began during a time of terror for Oglala Lakota on Pine Ridge. The special presentation of oral history by the Warrior Women Project on Saturday is part of four days of events celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Wounded Knee.

"When I think about my people, Indian people, I think of Wounded Knee. That was the awakening, the rise of our people," says Madonna Thunder Hawk, as the film begins. She is speaking at Oceti Sakowin Camp on Standing Rock in 2016.

'Warrior Women' Watch online now during 50th Anniversay of Wounded Knee

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As a part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations, the film Warrior Women will be available to watch online live from Friday, Feb 24 - Monday Feb 27. Click here to watch. 👉🏽 https://conta.cc/3ZjTKFn

Live coverage of the Warrior Women's Project events at the 50th Anniversary of Wounded Knee

February 25, 2023

Wounded Knee 50th Anniversary -- Pow-wow, Feasts and Honoring Warrior Women


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Chili Yazzie: In Search of Common Ground



IS THERE COMMON GROUND BETWEEN WESTERN THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT AND NATURE

By Chili Yazzie, Dine'
Shiprock, Navajo Nation
Censored News
Translated into French by Christine Prat

Western thought development takes massive quantities of elements from the earth to make things useful to mankind like electricity and petro. Western thought development includes non-energy economic and community development to create retail economy and infrastructure. Western thought is the bilagaana perspective. The concern with the ways of energy development is the destructiveness of it, the damage it does to the earth, the waste and pollution it leaves behind.

February 21, 2023

The Hidden Files: The BIA's Museum Program -- Stolen Property, Stolen Lives


 (Above) BIA Museum report was obtained by FOIA in 2019

The Hidden Files: The BIA’s Museum Program – Stolen Property, Stolen Lives

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News


Hidden in the files are the facts about the BIA Museum Program, a collection of 8 million items in bags and boxes, and on shelves, in 156 places, 87 BIA and 69 non-BIA facilities. It includes Native ancestors' remains, sacred items stolen from their graves, and artifacts.

The facts about the BIA storage facilities are only known because of a freedom of information act request.

It reveals that non-BIA facilities are being used as holding facilities for vast amounts of the BIA's "collections" in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah, Kansas, South Dakota, Idaho and Illinois. (See list below.)

Two of these are in Tucson. The largest of the BIA collections is at the University of Arizona's Arizona State Museum, and the National Park Service repository, near downtown Tucson. Some of these precious items are being held at museums in substandard conditions at museums in South Dakota, Arizona, and Utah, according to the BIA's report.

Native Voices Reframe History in New Grand Canyon Film


Coleen Kaska, former Havasupai Council member, says, "The water does not say that I belong to you. The water does not say, you know, I’m going to go this way for these people over here. The water has its own source, its own nature. It does not belong to anybody, it belongs to everybody." Photo Deidra Peaches, courtesy of Grand Canyon Trust

From left to right: Jim Enote (Zuni), Loretta Jackson-Kelly (Hualapai), Leigh Kuwanwisiwma (Hopi), Coleen Kaska, (Havasupai), and Nikki Cooley (Diné).  Kuwanwisiwma says in the film, "from the Grand Canyon, the spirits travel throughout the world as clouds." Credit: Deidra Peaches, courtesy of Grand Canyon Trust.

Native Voices Reframe History in New Grand Canyon Film

With an all-Native cast and production team, “Voices of the Grand Canyon” shifts the storytelling power to Native peoples who, for more than a century, have been excluded from the dominant narrative of Grand Canyon National Park. Their violent treatment and histories of forced removal from the Grand Canyon are mirrored in national parks across the country. The film has run the festival circuit over the last year, but is being released to the public online today for the first time. It won best documentary at the Indie Film Fest in Phoenix in February 2022, has been accepted into a dozen festivals around the world, and will be playing periodically at Grand Canyon National Park’s visitor center on the South Rim.

By Ashley Davidson
Communications Director
Grand Canyon Trust


FLAGSTAFF, Arizona —Deepen your understanding of the United States’ most iconic national park in the new short documentary “Voices of the Grand Canyon,” which launched online today in advance of Grand Canyon National Park’s 104th anniversary on Feb. 26, 2023.

February 20, 2023

Celebrating the Victory: Ward Valley 25th Anniversary in Photos


Celebrating the Victory of Halting a Nuclear Waste Dump
25 Years Later, Feb. 18, 2023

After facing off with BLM agents, and maintaining the camp in soaring 117-degree heat, in the end, the unified action protected the sacred running trails, the home of desert tortoises, and the water of the Colorado River, a source of life to millions.

February 17, 2023

Three Tribes File New Lawsuit Challenging Thacker Pass Lithium Mine



'This Fight Isn’t Over' – Three Tribes File New Lawsuit Challenging Thacker Pass Lithium Mine


Late yesterday, three Native American Tribes — the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Burns Paiute Tribe, and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe — launched a major new lawsuit against the Thacker Pass lithium mine.

This new case contains major allegations that were not heard in the prior court case, and may be a significant roadblock for the mine.

Protect Thacker Pass

February 17, 2023

Censored News

RENO, Nevada — Three Native American tribes have filed a new lawsuit against the Federal Government over Lithium Nevada Corporation’s planned Thacker Pass lithium mine, the latest move in what has become a two-year struggle over mining, greenwashing, and sacred land in northern Nevada.

February 16, 2023

Ward Valley 'Ground Zero' Spiritual Gatheirng Feb. 18, 2023


Ward Valley: Celebrating the Heroes
Censored News original series
Photos by Molly Johnson and Greenaction


The Rhythmic Journey Home: Birdsingers ensured victory at Ward Valley 
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-rhythmic-journey-home-birdsingers.html

One film that tells this story is 'Trespassing,' and when it was released, it was censored at most film festivals around the world. This is the transcript of Mojave Steve Lopez' words in Trespassing

Mojave Steve Lopez: Ward Valley halted Nuclear Genocide, Poisoning of Colorado River
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2018/02/mojave-steve-lopez-ward-valley-direct.htm

Corbin Harney, Western Shoshone, Wally Antone, Quechan and Llewellyn Barrackman, Fort Mojave. Photo by Molly Johnson.

Celebrating Victory at Ward Valley: Corbin Harney 'Sing to the Water'


The Desert Tortoise on Sacred Land, Celebrating the 20-Year Victory at Ward Valley 

Laguna Pueblo Dorothy Purley Exposed Nuclear Holocaust on Native Lands 

February 14, 2023

The Long Journey Home: Peabody Coal removed 341 Navajo and Hopi ancestors from their burial places


Roberta and Danny Blackgoat protesting Peabody Coal
slurry line in Flagstaff. Photo Brenda Norrell.

The Long Journey Home

Peabody Coal removed 341 Navajo and Hopi ancestors from their burial places

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Feb. 14, 2023
Translated into French by Christine Prat

BLACK MESA, Arizona -- Peabody Coal removed 341 Navajo and Hopi from their burial places for its coal mining, a tool of genocide, oppression and relocation.

Southern Illinois University still has several million artifacts stolen from Black Mesa by Peabody Coal, some dating back 8,000 years.

On this long tragic road home, the ancestors were sent to five different museums -- in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Nevada, and then finally to the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff -- before reburial in their homeland. 

Louise Benally, Dine' of Big Mountain, said, 
"Peabody Coal Company doesn't have any respect for anything or anybody, only their greed matters." Benally responded in 2013,  after the discovery of the removal of the ancestors.

February 11, 2023

Border Region: Czech Anthropologist Desecrated Graves of O'odham and Yaqui for Racist Research


The University of Arizona in Tucson is harboring more than 1,700 ancestors' remains that have not been returned to Tohono O'odham and other Hohokam descendants, in violation of federal law, a new database from ProPublica reveals. (Photo Tohono O'odham 1968 by University of Arizona, Arizona State Museum, by Helga Teiwes)

Border Region: Czech Anthropologist Desecrated Graves of O'odham and Yaqui for Racist Research

Trauma warning: The details of the grave robbers of Native burial places for museums can only be compared to a dark hole in the universe. It is vast and dark -- so dark that the trail of history leads back to acts by an anthropologist so vile and gruesome that this report must come with a warning: A trauma alert for Native descendants.

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Feb. 11, 2023

Czech anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka robbed Tohono O'odham graves and desecrated the Yaqui in their burial places. Hrdlicka's grave robbing was carried out as part of his white supremacist and race-based studies, aimed at proving the superiority of the white race using human skulls.

While plundering graves and desecrating the bodies of Native People in Arizona and Sonora, he took photos of Tohono O'odham, Havasuapi and Hualapai children and adults between 1898 and 1902, which are now in collections of the wealthy and museums.

February 9, 2023

Lithium Americas meets with Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone



 

Tribal Chairman Arlo Crutcher (center) and Lithium Americas Alexi Zawadzki (right)
at Thursday's session with Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone.
Watch the video on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/dorece.sam/videos/463678112513779

While some Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone are meeting with Lithium Americas, promising benefits today -- Winnemucca elderly and disabled are living at Motel 6. Grandmothers evicted with their grandchildren said they have been evicted from their homes to make way for lithium mine housing.
 
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Updated Feb. 9, 2023

FORT McDERMITT PAIUTE-SHOSHONE NATION -- Lithium Americas met Thursday with Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone, claiming it was consultation. A federal judge ruled in favor of a lithium mine on the Paiute Massacre Site at Thacker Pass on Monday.

When the session began, Lithium Americas was asked by a tribal member what they were doing here.

"From our perspective, we consider it consultation," said Alexi Zawadzki, president of North American Operation for Lithium Americas, which is based in Vancouver, Canada. It is the parent company of Lithium Nevada.

Dorece Sam, Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone, live-streamed the session.

"All I can say is yesterday's meeting was Bullshit. My people don't understand what Lithium Nevada is -- just all broken promises."

February 8, 2023

Federal Court Rules for Lithium Mining on Paiute Massacre Site at Thacker Pass

    Photo credit Lithium Americas at Thacker Pass. The company is based in Vancouver, Canada

Attorney Max Wilbert said, "Monday's news from the Thacker Pass court case was bad. There is no sugarcoating that. Some statements are circulating that interpret the court decision as favorable. That is wrong; at this very moment, Lithium Nevada is mobilizing trucks and heavy equipment to Thacker Pass to begin destroying the land. The judge's decision essentially clears the legal path for Lithium Nevada to begin full-scale construction over the next few months."


Protest of Lithium Americas planned mine outside federal court in Reno in January.


Federal Court Rules for Lithium Mining on Paiute Massacre Site at Thacker Pass

“We have expected this decision for some time,” said Arlan Melendez, Chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. “This does not mean consultation was done correctly and it does not mean this fight is over. We will be continuing to advocate for this sacred site.”

By Reno-Sparks Indian Colony
Contacts: Bethany Sam, Will Falk, Max Wilbert
Censored News


RENO, Nevada — On Monday, Judge Miranda Du issued her decision in the consolidated Thacker Pass court cases including Case No. 3:21-cv-00080-MMD-CLB, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Burns Paiute Tribe lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management.

February 7, 2023

The Napalm Burn Pit at Fallon


                F/A-18A Hornet armed with 77 napalm bombs NAS Fallon, Nevada in June 1993

The Napalm Burn Pit at Fallon

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Feb. 7, 2023

FALLON PAIUTE-SHOSHONE LAND -- The Navy Seals burned Napalm in burn pits at the Naval Air Station Fallon. The facts are buried in the investigations surrounding a cluster of childhood leukemia in Fallon in central Nevada. The facts are revealed now because a new database exposes another fact: The Navy bombing range has four Native remains that have not been repatriated, as required by law.

"Burning was accomplished by placing napalm canisters in the pit where they were axed open, saturated with diesel fuel and ignited." The Napalm burn pits were used at Fallon from 1963 until the 1980s.

The report for remediation from Oak Ridge describes the Napalm burn pit at Fallon:



February 5, 2023

University of California Berkeley leads U.S. in Native Grave Robbing



Photo Penn State Museum

University of California Berkeley leads U.S. in Native Grave Robbing. Long History of Grave Robbing by Museums Revealed in NAGPRA Notices.

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

The University of California Berkeley has the largest number of unreturned human remains of Native Americans, in violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Further, recent notices in the Federal Register reveal that grave robbing resulted in large numbers of Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa, Miwok, Pueblo, Shawnee, Arapaho, Siletz, and others being harbored for decades by museums across the United States.

UC Berkeley has Native remains from every county in Arizona and Utah where the Navajo Nation is located.

February 2, 2023

Shut Down Red HIll Facility -- U.S. Navy Endangers Native Hawaiians Water




Shut down Red Hill: Ola I Ka Wai!

 Down Red Hill Public Comment due Monday, Feb. 6

By Water Protectors Legal Collective

Relatives,

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Navy are asking for public comments on a consent decree regarding the defueling and closure of the Red Hill Facility, and the operation of the Pearl Harbor drinking water system. The consent decree was negotiated without any consultation with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply or the community whose lives, homes, children, and future generations remain in existential jeopardy every day that fuel remains in the decrepit Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility and its actively corroding underground storage tanks.

American Indian Airwaves: Listen 'Nuclear Colonialism and Protecting Mother Earth'






Nuclear Colonialism Censored: Part 3 on Allyship and its Complications in Moving Forward and Peacefully Healing Mother Earth

Thursday, 2/2/2023, on American Indian Airwaves on KPFK, 7pm to 8pm (PCT)

By Larry Smith (Lumbee)
Co-host/Producer of American Indian Airwaves

Part I

Nuclear Colonialism with Leona Morgan (Dine’ Nation) is a three-part interview broadcast over three consecutive episodes of American Indian Airwaves. The series focuses on our guest’s community work since 2007, which includes combatting many aspects of nuclear colonialism.