LIVE: Western Mining Action Network in Montreal

Petuuche Gilbert, Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, longtime human rights defender speaks on the nuclear fuel chain; Earl Hatley, Abenaki/Shawnee/Cherokee, speaks on pollution in the Oklahoma rivershed, and Donna Ashamock, Eeyou (Creek) speaks on work underway in Moose Factory, Ontario. (Screenshot Censored News)

Live in Montreal: Indigenous Caucus at the Western Mining Action Network 

Petuuche Gilbert, Acoma Pueblo

LIVE: Western Mining Action Network in Montreal

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Nov. 14, 2024

Govinda is broadcasting live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM8y-wu4LgM

MONTREAL -- The Western Mining Action Network is meeting today in Montreal, with speakers from the network's Indigenous Caucus speaking on the nuclear fuel chain, defending the water and land, and the rights stated in the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.

The Deadly Nuclear Fuel Chain Petuuche Gilbert, Acoma Pueblo, said there should be more concern over the nuclear fuel chain, radiation and uranium mining. The  nuclear fuel chain includes the making of the atomic bomb, and the nuclear waste from spent fuel rods in nuclear power plants.

In his homeland, in the Grants mining district in New Mexico, the abandoned uranium mines are radioactive hazards affecting the water, air and the animals on the ground.


Nearby on the Navajo Nation, there are more than 500 abandoned uranium mines and there are massive uranium mill waste sites, where the ore was processed. These all emit radon gas. He pointed out that the McArthur River, Key Lake uranium mine and mill in northern Saskatchewan, Canada is the world's largest uranium mine and mill.

Petuuche said he believes that the cancers now that the people in his area are suffering from are a result of radioactivity. There was also the atomic bomb testing in Nevada. All of that radioactivity spread over the entire United States. Downwinders breathing the radioactivity in the air are also radiation victims.

"We are radiation victims."

Radiation emissions also come from the laboratories working to enhance nuclear weapons. This includes Rocky Flats near Denver, Oak Flats, Hanford, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, and uranium enrichment facilities in New Mexico.

The spent fuel rods are dangerous and communities don't want these in their backyards. So, now there is a plan for nuclear power plants to send these spent fuel rods out west to New Mexico or Texas.

"That's the plan."

"Trillions of dollars have been spent by the United States improving nuclear weapons."

Petuuche said Indigenous Peoples are working to prevent nuclear weapons from harming people. They are working to keep uranium in the ground.

Indigenous Peoples have the right to say 'No,' to the things that will harm their way of life.

"We don't want to go down this route of making more nuclear weapons."

Indigenous Peoples have a right to defend their homelands, yet they are being imprisoned for protesting, while they are protecting their homeland, their people and their culture.

Now, there is the challenge of Indigenous Peoples restoring and recovering their lands.

Eeyou (Cree) Donna Ashamock works in her community in Moosonee and Moose Factory in northeastern Ontario. (Screenshot Censored News)

Speaking on fishing, and taking care of the land and her grandchildren, Donna Ashamock, Eeyou (Cree) said, "Being able to uplift is very important. The genocide in Canada has not stopped."

"They are pushing us to become Canadian citizens without treaties." She said the image that Canada is a peace keeper is not true.

"Young elders, that's who they are. They represent the strength," she said of the young people who speak their language. "It's beautiful."

Canada has accepted the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but it is diluted. Canada's Truth and Reconciliation is a double-edged sword.

"It's a slippery slope."

In reference to child welfare, it's residential schools all over again.

The destructive mining results in roads that destroy the land, and disrupt the caribou's way of life.

"We are in the belly of the beast."

Lithium is now huge in northern Quebec.

"As Indigenous Peoples it is our responsibility to speak up. We don't want the caribou to disappear, we don't want the sturgeon to disappear."

June Lorenzo, Laguna Pueblo/Dine', speaking today

Attorney June Lorenzo, Laguna Pueblo/Dine', PhD, spoke on Indigenous human rights and mining. Who really has sovereignty over resources, she asked.

Lorenzo spoke on the Doctrine of Discovery, and the push to develop regions like the Arctic. That's the extreme legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. Now Bear Ears, Mount Taylor, Oak Flat, San Francisco Peaks, and the Arctic Slope are targeted for development.

In the Southwest billions of acres were taken to create National Parks and National Forests. Indigenous Peoples were never asked. It was the thinking generated by the Doctrine of Discovery that Indigenous Peoples did not have title to the land, but were merely occupants.

Unreputable treaties that were not honored, the general allotment act in the United States, are examples of the taking of the lands of Native people.

The mining act of 1872 is outdated and favors mining on public lands.

"It's been very hard to get rid of."

"It's not likely to change, even in this administration."

Water is a Spiritual Entity

Earl Hatley, Abenaki/Shawnee/Cherokee, spoke on the need to view water as a spiritual entity essential to all life on  Mother Earth, and the need to hold governments and corporations accountable to clean contaminated water.

"The right to say, 'No' to mining," Hatley said, of the transitional minerals mining.

"We know that mining companies do not clean up, they leave, and leave it to the Superfund to take over. We pay for it out of our pockets."

Conservation of energy, recycling, and mass transit, including for rural areas, are alternatives to increased mining.

Hatley is a co-founder of LEAD Agency, Inc. a grassroots organization in northeastern Oklahoma. LEAD’s original focus was the Tar Creek Superfund Site. The Site is a forty square mile area of abandoned lead and zinc mines impacting the subsistence and cultural resources of the ten tribes located in the area.

Hatley served as the Grand Riverkeeper, patrolling the Grand River and feeder streams of the upper Grand River watershed in northeastern Oklahoma.

Listen to all the speakers good words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM8y-wu4LgM

Western Mining Action Network 2024 Biennial Conference in Montreal, Quebec

"Titled Mining Justice in the Climate Crisis (Justice minée en temps de crise climatique), the Conference will convene 150-200 people from mining-affected communities and allies working in legal aid, scientific support, and environmental NGO's for cross-cultural knowledge sharing; elevating Indigenous voices; leadership development; and training in environmental advocacy and democratic organizing.

"With support from the local grassroots group Coalition Québec meilleure mine (Quebec Coalition for a better mining framework) the Biennial Conference will increase awareness of mining in Quebec that is threatening local communities, while addressing the social and environmental impacts of mining across the US and Canada. The Conference is for frontline communities affected by mining and the allies working with them."

(Note: Sessions may not be open to the public -- Censored News)

Preliminary schedule:

Tuesday November 12: Indigenous Caucus travel day
Wednesday November 13: Indigenous Caucus meeting
Thursday November 14: Conference plenaries/workshops/panels
Friday November 15: Conference plenaries/workshops/panels
Saturday November 16: Conference plenaries/workshops/panels/cultural night
Sunday November 17: Daytime Field trip

Additional program information and schedule available after registration.

https://www.miningactionnetwork.org/event/2024-wman-biennial-conference

Indigenous Caucus Speakers Today

Earl Hatley, President of LEAD Agency, Inc. 

He is a co-founder of the LEAD agency – an environmental justice organization, working on a total of 18 Superfund sites so far in his career. Earl also serves as the Grand Riverkeeper, protecting Grand Lake and the upper Grand River watershed, working in conjunction with the Waterkeeper Alliance.

Petuuche Gilbert, Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. Petuuche has worked over 30 years for the Acoma Pueblo and was a tribal councilman for ten years. He worked with many others on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He is a member of the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment and the Acoma and Laguna Coalition for a Safe Environment which are involved in legacy uranium mines and mills clean up and in opposing nuclear waste storage in New Mexico.

June L. Lorenzo, Laguna Pueblo/Navajo (Diné), lives and works in her home community of Laguna Pueblo. She works with community organizations and Indigenous non-governmental organizations to address uranium mining legacy issues and resistance to new mining, sacred landscape protection and, more recently, on issues of repatriation of cultural patrimony.

Donna Ashamock

Mining Watch Canada Board of Directors
Donna is an Eeyou/Inninew (Cree) community organizer for over twenty-five years, contributing to the development of Indigenous governance with a self-defined Indigenous community—MoCreebec—in Moosonee and Moose Factory in northeastern Ontario. Donna is a member of the Cree Nation and affiliated with Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug. Grounded in Cree-centred processes and worldview, she collaborated with fellow MoCreebec citizens to organize innovative community initiatives to support their collective governance and economic self-reliance such as the Cree Village Ecolodge, Community Education and Empowerment Project, and the MoCreebec Constitution.