Peltier is Home! Photos by Inila Wakan Janis

Leonard Peltier is Safely Home

Photos by Inila Wakan Janis

"This evening hundreds of Leonard Peltier's community showed up to celebrate his Homecoming and to share a meal together. Many relatives, family members, elders and children from the Turtle Mountain Reservation spoke for him and shared stories of their own decades long efforts. Just a grateful and proud witness to a beautiful moment in our shared history." -- Inila Wakan Janis, Feb. 18, 2025

Leonard Peltier Left Prison on Tuesday Morning

Leonard is Home

The eagle has landed in Turtle Mountains

Leonard Peltier after leaving Coleman Prison this morning in Florida.

“Today I am finally free! They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit!” said Leonard Peltier. “Thank you to all my supporters throughout the world who fought for my freedom. I am finally going home. I look forward to seeing my friends, my family, and my community. It’s a good day today.” -- Leonard Peltier

Peltier Home on Turtle Mountain

By Minnesota Star Tribune: Leonard Peltier enters Turtle Mountain with a raised fist ... "By the time Peltier’s caravan arrived in Belcourt to a parade of more than 100 people along the highway, the aging man in poor health was ready to go home to rest. The crowd waited for him at the Sky Dancer Casino to share his first requested meal of stew, but they carried on the celebration with song, drum circles and stories."

Read more https://www.startribune.com/its-a-historical-day-leonard-peltier-coming-home-tuesday-after-nearly-50-years-in-prison/601224731

 

Mohawk Nation News 'Gustafsson Lake Military Seige 1995'

 Read the article at Mohawk Nation News

https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2025/02/18/gustafsson-lake-military-seige-1995/

Havasupai Tribe Deeply Disappointed in Navajo Nation for Failing to Consult Havasupai on Radioactive Hauling

Havasupai Tribe Deeply Disappointed in Navajo Nation for Failing to Consult Havasupai on Radioactive Hauling

Photo courtesy Grand Canyon Trust

"Shame on Energy Fuels Resources and those who were not brave enough to do what is right and necessary." -- Havasupai Tribe.

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Feb. 14, 2025

The Havasupai Tribe said the Navajo Nation has disregarded the aboriginal people who live on the land, and failed to consult them before entering into a dangerous agreement for radioactive uranium hauling. There are two trucks now each weekday, traveling at high rates of speed, each carrying 24 tons of radioactive matter that is only covered with tie-down tarps from the Grand Canyon to the uranium mill in Utah.

Navajo President's Deal for Radioactive Transport was Kept Secret from Navajo Council

Navajo President's Deal for Radioactive Transport was Kept Secret from Navajo Council

"Who negotiated these terms?" asked Shiprock Council Delegate Eugenia Charles-Newton.

Navajo Council Committee clearly frustrated during probe of Navajo President's secret 'backroom' deal allowing uranium waste transport

"I don't think they're going to give us the answers. They're just passing the buck." -- Councilman George Tolth.

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Updated Feb. 17, 2025

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd73YnP9xBE

WINDOW ROCK, Navajo Nation -- A Navajo Nation Council committee questioned who was responsible for an agreement with Energy Fuels that allows radioactive uranium trucks to travel through the Navajo Nation, pointing out that the Navajo Nation Council was never consulted and never approved the agreement with Energy Fuels.

After going around in circles, and avoiding answering the questions, finally Navajo attorneys said those responsible for negotiating the agreement were Ethel Branch, former Navajo Attorney General, Acting Attorney General Heather Claw, along with the Navajo Department of Justice, and Navajo EPA.

Council delegates questioned why there was not even an attempt made to seek a waiver from a federal law that prevents uranium transport from being blocked on highways, so that the uranium transport could be halted on the Navajo Nation.

Mohawk Nation News 'Free Leonard Peltier'

Kahentinetha Horn, Mohawk Mother and publisher of Mohawk Nation News, shares her thoughts after viewing the new film, "Free Leonard Peltier," which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January.

New today at Mohawk Nation News:

https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2025/02/12/free-leonard-peltier/

Alert: Radioactive Uranium Trucks on the Navajo Nation Today

Radioactive Uranium Trucks on Navajo Nation

A banner on the deadly haul route today, Wednesday, as two radioactive uranium transport trucks pass by Dine' homes in Tuba City on the Navajo Nation. Dine' families said they had no warning and the Navajo government sold them out.

Radioactive uranium trucks loaded at Energy Fuels Pinyon Plain uranium mine in the Grand Canyon ready on Tuesday. Courtesy photo for Censored News.

Two radioactive uranium trucks passed through Tuba City on the Navajo Nation at between 11 a.m. and noon today, covered only with tarps, headed to the mill in the White Mesa Ute community in Utah. 

Breaking News update:

Navajo Nation Council committees said the Navajo Council was never consulted and never approved the secret agreement with Energy Fuels for uranium transport, which was carried out by Navajo President Buu Nygren and the tribe's attorneys.

'Free Leonard Peltier' A Film For the People

Powerful voices in 'Free Leonard Peltier' Image by Censored News

Free Leonard Peltier A Film For the People

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Feb. 11, 2025

"Free Leonard Peltier" begins in Leavenworth. And with the sound of the metal crash of the prison door behind him, there is the sound of the passage of time, years and years of time.

Free Leonard Peltier tells the long story, back from the beginning, of the injustice, the police beatings, lives stolen in boarding schools, and the 68 murders on Pine Ridge. It tells the story of the soft-spoken Leonard Peltier.

The images, from Alcatraz to the BIA takeover in Washington, to the Jumping Bull Camp, tell the story of those who were there and have always known what happened.

The film reveals one of the longest-running secrets in Indian country.

'Don't Nuke the Grand Canyon!' Flagstaff Action -- Photos by Dawn Dyer

Flagstaff Haul No! Solidarity
Photos by Dawn Dyer
Censored News, Today, February 10, 2025

.

Navajo Nation is 'Back Peddling' by Allowing Uranium Transport through Dine' Communities and More Dumping on Utes

Navajo Nation is 'Back Peddling' by Allowing Uranium Transport through Dine' Communities and More Dumping on Utes

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Feb. 8, 2025

TUBA CITY -- Leona Morgan, Dine' co-founder of Haul No!, said the Navajo Nation is now "back peddling" by allowing radioactive uranium waste to be transported through Dine' communities. This radioactive transport from the Grand Canyon means even more deadly waste for another Native community -- the White Mesa Ute community in Utah.

Speaking at a community forum in Tuba City on Saturday, Leona said there has been little or no information along the haul route. The Navajo government expects the Dine' Chapters on the route to each have an emergency preparedness plan. Leona asked if the Dine' communities are aware of this and whether the Navajo Chapters are certified to deal with radioactive emergencies.

Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Permit Violates Indigenous Peoples’ Rights: Mine Permitted Without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent

Numu/Nuwu and Newe prayer horse riders pictured in front of the mountain range approaching Peehee Mu’huh on the annual memorial and prayer horse ride in honor of the 1865 massacre and other atrocities that occurred across the state. Fort McDermitt, Nevada, March 24, 2024. 

© 2024 Alison Leal Parker/Human Rights Watch

Lithium Mine Permit Violates Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Mine Permitted Without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent

By Human Rights Watch and ACLU, Censored News, February 9, 2025

-- The US government’s decision to permit Lithium Americas to mine at Thacker Pass in Nevada violated Indigenous people’s rights by not obtaining free, prior, and informed consent.

-- The project shows how US mining laws and the permit process run roughshod over the rights of Indigenous peoples, who find access to the land important for religious and cultural practices. Residents also fear that the mine threatens their rights to health, a healthy environment, and water.

-- The federal government should halt construction at Thacker Pass until it gets the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples and ensure that all current and future mine permit processes comply with international human rights standards.

WASHINGTON, D.C. February 6, 2025 -- The United States government’s decision to permit Lithium Americas to mine at Thacker Pass in Nevada violated Indigenous people’s rights, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU said in a report released today. The 18,000-acre mining project is under construction and will extract lithium from one of the world’s largest known deposits.

The 133-page report, “‘The Land of Our People, Forever’: United States Human Rights Violations against the Numu/Nuwu and Newe in the Rush for Lithium,” found that the US Bureau of Land Management permitted the Thacker Pass mine without obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous people—the Numu/Nuwu and Newe, or Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone in English—in violation of their rights to religion, culture, and to their ancestral lands under international human rights law and standards. While there may be others, at least six Tribes have connection to the land at Thacker Pass.

The Circus is Coming to Town: The Bizarre Lawsuit of Energy Transfer v Greenpeace and Red Warrior Society

The Circus is Coming to Town

The Bizarre Lawsuit of Energy Transfer v Greenpeace and Red Warrior Society

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, updated Feb. 16, 2025

The trial of Energy Transfer v Greenpeace is scheduled to begin in North Dakota court in Mandan on Feb. 24, 2025. It's been nine years since the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance. Now, Greenpeace International says the pipeline is trying to shut it down with a frivolous $300 million lawsuit.

Greenpeace says the pipeline company doesn't want the world to know the Water Protectors resistance at Standing Rock was an Indigenous-led movement. Meanwhile, Energy Transfer has been slapping Water Protectors with third party subpoenas to extract their information, and fighting Unicorn Riot media for its internal records in the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Buried in History: The Native Children who Died in U.S. Boarding Schools and Were Not Reported

The U.S. Interior Did Not Report Thousands of Children's Deaths in U.S. Boarding Schools

Ward Valley Spiritual Gathering Feb. 15, 2025

YOU are invited to join the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, Greenaction and other friends and allies at the 27th annual celebration of the 113-day occupation of federal land at Ward Valley that stopped plans for a nuclear waste dump on indigenous sacred land in an environmentally sensitive area near the Colorado River.

On February 12, 1998 as federal police were assembling to arrest tribal membes and supporters occupying the proposed dump site, the five Native Nations along the lower Colorado River, Greenaction, and many others peacefully occupied the land, placing barricades in the road as the Indigenous spiritual leaders, Elders and members began ongoing ceremonies. The standoff began at midnight, as hundreds of us led by the Elders and other tribal members and leaders blocked the police from entering, and we held the land for 113 days until the White House backed down. This was one of the most awesome, powerful, and beautiful victories in the history of the Environmental  Movement.

The celebration will take place Saturday, February 15th starting 8 am California time (the flyer says 9 am as the Mojaves use Arizona time) at Ward Valley which is about 22 miles west of Needles, California, off the Water Road exit on Interstate 40. It will start promptly on time, kicking off when the Mojave Spirit Runners arrive at the site and the Ft. Mojave tribal band starts playing. There's plenty of places to camp, and
lodging in Needles.

Buffy's Censored Words Led to Revelations in New Peltier Film Premiered at Sundance

Buffy's Censored Words Led to Revelations in New Peltier Film Premiered at Sundance

"My girlfriend Annie Mae talked about uranium
Her head was filled with bullets and her body dumped
The FBI cut off her hands and told us she'd died of Exposure…" 

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Feb. 4, 202

TSAILE, Navajo Nation -- The words of Buffy Sainte Marie, censored by Indian Country Today, led to revelations about Oglala President Dick Wilson's secret land deal on Pine Ridge in the new film Free Leonard Peltier, which premiered at Sundance, producer Jesse Short Bull told Censored News.

Buffy's interview at Dine' College in 1999 was censored for seven years. Before I was fired as a staff reporter, a portion of the interview was published by the newspaper -- but one paragraph was still censored.

In the still censored portion, Buffy referred to a secret land deal on the day of the shoot out at the Jumping Bull property on Pine Ridge.

Buffy said, "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."

Dick Wilson planned to turn over the mineral rights in the Badlands to the U.S. government. The U.S. government wanted the land for uranium mining. Dick Wilson's secret plan was discovered in the documents in the BIA file cabinets by the American Indian Movement, during the takeover of the BIA building in Washington in 1972.

Following the premiere of Free Leonard Peltier at the Sundance Film Festival, Jesse Short Bull, Oglala Lakota, and director of the film, reveals how Buffy's words led to the search for the facts about Dick Wilson's uranium mining scheme with the U.S. government.

"Buffy's song about Anna Mae really shocked me, she outlined it so well," Short Bull said. "The plans for mineral development for Pine Ridge were discovered at the 1972 BIA takeover, and by the 1980's the big wig energy companies came to Pine Ridge with big ideas for development."

Dick Wilson's Secret Meeting on the Day of the Shootout

It was on the day of the shoot-out at the Jumping Bull Camp -- that resulted in 50 years of imprisonment for Leonard Peltier -- that Dick Wilson signed over the mineral rights in the Badlands on June 26, 1975.

Short Bull said, "There is so little information on the uranium portion on Pine Ridge, however we were able to find and confirm some interesting things. The craziest of all being that on the day of the shootout, there was indeed, a meeting between Oglala Sioux Tribal President Dick Wilson and Dept. of Interior, the mineral rights to the land which is now under the South Unit of the Badlands National Park was signed over, where it remains despite subsequent tribal admins that followed asking/demanding for them back. By 1977, the first claim from Wyoming company was opened one mile off the reservation line, in the same portion of badlands, though development did not materialize, the claim lay active until 2013."

"Buffy's song about Anna Mae really shocked me, she outlined it so well," Short Bull said. "The plans for mineral development for Pine Ridge were discovered at the 1972 BIA takeover, and by the 1980's the big wig energy companies came to Pine Ridge with big ideas for development."

"It was the Elijah Whirlwind Horse admin, who met with these people, considered their proposals, then rejected them, in doing so established the first law that forbids uranium and other mining activities, as well as passing the first resolution asking for mineral rights back, and created a document titled, The Gunnery Range Report, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Office of the President, Jaquelline Huber, Pine Ridge South Dakota 1981, which the books, In the Spirit Crazy of Crazy Horse, and the The Trial of Leonard Peltier, cite."

In the new film, 'Free Leonard Peltier,' the words of John Trudell describe the secret land transfer carried out at the same time as the shoot-out at the Jumping Bull Camp on Pine Ridge. "It's always about the land," says Madonna Thunder Hawk of the U.S. government's scheme for uranium mining in the Badlands. Nearly all of the details were hidden in history, even purged from the Internet Archive. When uranium was discovered in the Badlands, the U.S. government wanted it for their atomic bombs. (Screenshot 'Free Leonard Peltier' 2025 by Censored News)

1970: The Protest at Sheep Mountain

Buffy's words led Short Bull to this news article.

"About 1,000 Indians gathered here Thursday evening, on the 94th anniversary of their defeat of Col. George Armstrong Custer, to start a vigil protesting expansion of the Badlands National Monument onto land taken from the Sioux for a gunnery range during World War II," The Daily Republic in Mitchell South Dakota reported on June 28, 1970.

 

"The non-violent protest, sponsored by an unofficial Oglala Sioux land committee, is being held outside the national monument on Sheep Mountain, a high, flat table about six miles southwest of the small town of Scenic."

"A few teepees went up, dense dust clouds rose from the dirt train leading from the hard-surface road and the Indians started their vigil on the long table overlooking the rugged and colorful Badlands. Medicine Men Pete Catches and Frank Fools Crow offered opening prayers, two groups of drummers and singers started an Omaha dance and small groups gathered for serious discussion of the issue."

The northwestern section of Pine Ridge was taken during the early days of World War II for a gunnery range. The land committee, headed by Richard T. Little, demanded that the government return 24,500 acres to Indian ownership, the article states. 

Charles Garnett of Kyle said at Sheep Mountain, "The government gave us four days to move out and we were led to believe we would have our land back in at least 10 years. Now, more than 25 years later, they want us to buy it back for a higher price." 

Lakota voiced a fear that the land would fall into non-Indian hands and that "vultures waiting on the sidelines" would furnish funds with the ultimate goal of seizing the land because Lakota wouldn't be able to pay the funds back.

Lakotas were expected to revive the Ghost Dance Saturday night, the article says.

Image courtesy Jesse Short Bull, producer, Free Leonard Peltier

Peltier's Clemency

During Buffy's concert at Dine' College at Tsaile, on the Navajo Nation in 1999, she joined John Trudell in the all-star lineup at the outdoor concert. Buffy dedicated her song, 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,' to Leonard Peltier.

Peltier was granted clemency by Biden during his last moments in office in January. Biden commuted Peltier's two life sentences. Biden stated Peltier's release date from federal prison to home confinement is Feb. 18, 2025.

Short Bull's search led him to an earlier resolution of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe, urging executive clemency for Leonard Peltier, quotes Federal Judge Gerald Heaney in the case: "The FBI was equally responsible for the June 26, 1975 shoot-out."

Peltier, during his fifty years of imprisonment, pointed to the comments in the case.

"During my appeal before the 8th Circuit, the former Prosecuting Attorney, Lynn Crooks, said to Judge Heaney. 'Your honor, we do not know who killed those agents. Further, we don’t know what participation if any, Peltier had in it.' That statement exonerates me, and I should have been released," Peltier said in 2018.

Mohawk Mother Kahentinetha Horn said, "The solicitor general of Canada at the time, Warren Allmand, sent Peltier back to the US on false evidence provided by the FBI."

"When he learned it was false he worked to return him to Canada. His son married my brother's daughter, Wendiiosta, and they have one daughter, which is Allmand's only grandchild. I met him at a social gathering and asked him what he was doing to get Peltier out. He told me he knew he was innocent and was doing all he could to help his case. He is now dead," Kahentinetha told Censored News when Peltier was granted clemency.

UNCENSORED: The following interview with Buffy Sainte Marie details how she was put out of the music business by U.S. President Johnson because of her stance against the Vietnam war. The article was censored by Indian Country Today, where I was a staff writer, in 1999. A portion of it was published in 2006, before I was fired as a longtime staff reporter at the newspaper.

The U.N. Observer and International Report at the Hague, published by Paul Rafferty, was the first to publish the article of Buffy's interview in full. The timing of my firing by Indian Country Today in late September of 2006 was significant because I was on my way across Tucson to cover the Indigenous Border Summit of the Americas in San Xavier District, on the Tohono O'odham Nation. A large delegation of the Mohawk Warrior Society were enroute from the north to support Tohono O'odham and the border resistance. 

 

Beyond images of women and Indians: Straight-talk from a Cree icon

By Brenda Norrell (1999)

TSAILE, Ariz. -- Seated behind the concert stage at
Dine' College, Buffy Sainte-Marie is visionary and
philosopher, folk star and educator, mother and
confidant to truth-seekers. A voice of history and
reason, the Cree poet and songwriter describes life on
the rim, beyond the defined images of women and
Indians.

Relaxing after her performance onstage, Buffy says she
always refused to be categorized as an
aerobic-Indian-princess-Pocahontas. The result: She
was blacklisted, and along with her Indian
contemporaries, put out of business.

"I found out ten years later, in the 1980s, that
Lyndon Johnson had been writing letters on White House
stationary praising radio stations for suppressing my
music."

Buffy, however, is focused on art, not bitterness, and
explains that in Indian communities, there is no name
for artists.

"In my own language, there is no word for art."

Instead, they say, "It shines through him." That, she
says is the mystery -- the artist is a vehicle for the
Creator.

Backstage, Buffy takes chalk in hand, detailing how
the 1960s and 1970s -- the student movement and
American Indian Movement -- were the roots of change.

In the 1960s in Minneapolis, "The guys were in the
streets. The guys who would become AIM." In Boston,
and elsewhere in the East there was no awareness of
Indian people.

"I grew up in Maine and Massachusetts, and I was told
that I couldn't be Indian because all the Indians were
gone," Buffy said.

"So, in other words, the consciousness was Zero." But
there were inklings in the white world, like in the
National Indian Youth Council and the Upward Bound
program recruiting Indian students for college, that
there was a need for change.

"In the Indian community, in Saskatchewan where I am
from, the Indian people were real grass-rootsy and
they had no clue of how they were being ripped off. In
the grassroots in general, people were being worked
over by the oil companies."

The student movement and coffeehouses of Greenwich
Village became her platform in the 1960s. In the
multi-racial movement, students were talking and
students were listening.

"The student movement was extremely important. It's
not happening right now, but it was then and it was a
small window through which people like myself came
into show business."

"Coffee was the drug of choice." And the lyrics and
the movement were serious.

"It meant that people like myself could get on a bus,
in sneakers and a trench coat with a guitar, and fill
concert halls."

In the late 1960s, coffeehouses were suddenly viewed
as moneymakers. "In show business, whatever is making
money is like honey -- and it attracted a lot of bugs
-- a lot of sharks."

The lyrics were watered down and coffeehouses that
remained open had liquor licenses.

"In the 1970s, not only was the protest movement put
out of business, but the Native American movement was
attacked."

Meanwhile, Buffy cut a singular path. "I usually
didn't do what other people did. You didn't find me at
peace marches. I was out in Indian country."

Then, came the occupation of Wounded Knee and the
shoot-out with FBI agents at the Jumping Bull
residence at Pine Ridge June 26, 1975. "That is where
Leonard Peltier's troubles began," Buffy says.

Buffy says 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."

At the time, Buffy was selling more records than ever
in Canada and Asia. But, in the United States, her
records were disappearing. Thousands of people at
concerts wanted records. Although the distributor said
the records had been shipped, no one seemed to know
where they were. One thing was for sure, they were not
on record shelves.

"I was put out of business in the United States."

Later she discovered the censorship and pressure
applied to radio stations by President Lyndon Johnson
during the Vietnam era, particularly toward her
"Universal Soldier" during the anti-war movement.

Buffy says Indian people were put out of business, not
just because they were succeeding in Indian country,
but because they were succeeding in the broader
community. She and others were a threat to the
moneymakers of concert halls, uranium and oil.

Then, fellow activist and poet John Trudell's wife and
children were burned to death in a house fire shortly
after he burned an American flag in Washington D.C.,
February 11, 1979.

"I was just one person put out of business. John
Trudell is just another person whose life was put out
of business. Anna Mae Aquash and Leonard Peltier were
put out of the living business -- we were made
ineffective."

But she continued. Moving into electronic music, which
she says Americans didn't want to hear, then into
music scoring. In the 1980s, she began producing
digital art on her Macintosh at home. Those
brightly-colored large-scale paintings are now
featured in museums.

"Sixteen million colors are hard to resist," she says
of the computer's palette.

In the 1990s, she created the Cradleboard Teaching
Project to link American Indian students with other
students online around the world. Traveling now to
Indian communities and colleges, the project debunks
stereotypes and shares history and culture by way of
CD-ROM.

Sharing the concert stage at Dine' College with
Trudell, Buffy says she and Trudell were "just
puppies," during the takeover of Alcatraz in the
1960s. Yet, they kept struggling; kept surviving.

"We just kept chugging on. We kept coming to Indian
country. We didn't worry about the fortune and fame
because we went with our sincerity, our hearts, and
with our friends."

There was the pain of seeing people hurt, but the
movers of the '60s and '70s survived, developed,
taught, and shared with old friends the joys of
watching children and Indian country grow.

"It was hard -- seeing people hurt," she says. And
there was the pain of seeing women and the elderly
treated with lack of respect. But, people began to
sober up and change. Her "Starwalker" is a tribute.

"Starwalker is for all generations past and yet to
come. So many people have seen the reality of that in
their lives," she says, adding that the song is one of
her favorites.

"Starwalker he's a friend of mine
You've seen him looking fine he's a
straight talker
he's a Starwalker don't drink no wine
ay way hey o heya

Wolf Rider she's a friend of yours
You've seen her opening doors
She's a history turner
she's a sweetgrass burner and a
dog soldier
ay hey way hey way heya"

Although Buffy makes her home in Hawaii, much of her
time is spent in Canada and on the road. Fame,
however, has its drawbacks, making it impossible to
simply attend a pow wow. "Sesame Street put an end to
it."

Buffy said Native people in Canada are doing well in
all walks of life, the government, television and law.
"It's not like it is in the United States."

What has happened in Canada? Canada attracted a
different type of European. "People didn't want to put
up with the U.S. gobbly-greed."

Then, she adds, "Native people were hipper. Things are
still very pure, but very strong in Canada."

Questioned about the media, Buffy says if you want to
find out the motive behind a newspaper's coverage,
look to see who owns the paper. She was asked by a
Native photographer why only negative articles are
published in a leading Arizona paper.

"Find out who owns it," she says, explaining that this
fact will reveal the motive.

Then, she adds, "Don't let the bastards get you down."

Buffy was born on the Piapot Cree Reserve in
Saskatchewan in 1941. Later, while evolving as a revolutionary
folk-singer, she received degrees in Oriental
Philosophy and teaching, and a Ph.D. in Fine Art from
the University of Massachusetts.

A young Bob Dylan heard her sing in Greenwich Village
and recommended she perform at the Gaslight, another
hangout of the avant-garde. Janis Joplin and Elvis
Presley were among those who recorded her lyrics.

On the road, she traveled the world and received a

medal from Queen Elizabeth II.

Shifting gears as a mother, Buffy and her son Dakota
Wolfchild Starblanket became stars of Sesame Street in
1976 and dissolved myths about who Indians are. "Up
Where We Belong," recorded for the film "An Officer
and A Gentleman," won an Academy Award in 1982.

After the release of her album "Coincidence and Likely
Stories," in 1993, she helped establish a new Juno
Awards category for Aboriginal Music in Canada. That
same year, France named Buffy "Best International
Artist of 1993."

Defying definition, she has also written country
music, including "He's an Indian Cowboy in the Rodeo."
She  served as an adjunct professor in Canada and New
York, and as an artist in residence at the Institute
of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.

Onstage at the Native American Music Festival at Dine'
College, a benefit concert for the Dine' Council of
Arts and Humanities, Buffy sang selections from her
1996 release, "Up Where We Belong."

Festival organizer Ferlin Clark recalled driving Buffy
through Apache country to share her Cradleboard
Teaching Project, then convincing her to drive until
dawn to reach the Navajo's Canyon de Chelly. Once at
Spider Rock, Buffy reached for a pen and paper to
write. Inspired, she knew she would return.

In concert, Buffy dedicated "Bury My Heart At Wounded
Knee," to Leonard Peltier.

The lyrics tell the story of Native people of the
1880s and later in the 1960s and 1970s, that fell to
the hands of the "robber barons" driven by greed for
oil, gold and precious metals. While manipulating the
media and politicians, they added uranium to their
agenda in the Twentieth Century.

In the song, Buffy sings of a senator in Indian
country, a "darling of the energy companies," and
covert spies, liars, federal marshals and FBI.

Buffy sings her safety rule: "Don't stand between the
reservation and the corporate bank. They send in
federal tanks…"

The song is a also tribute to assassinated activist
Anna Mae Aquash, whose murderers remain at large. The
lyrics describe the act of the FBI in cutting off her
decomposed hands under the guise of identification.

"My girlfriend Annie Mae talked about uranium
Her head was filled with bullets and her body dumped
The FBI cut off her hands and told us she'd died of
Exposure…"

Bury my heart at Wounded Knee
Deep in the Earth
Cover me with pretty lies
bury my heart at Wounded Knee."

Also see:

'Keepers of the Stronghold Dream.' Defending the Stronghold in the Badlands, by Brenda Norrell, Censored News.

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/08/keepers-of-stronghold-dream.html

Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News. Content may not be used without written permission.

Navajo Nation Dishonors Legacy of Klee Benally: Agrees to Uranium Transport Through Navajo Nation

 

Klee protesting abandoned uranium mines on Navajo Naition in DC.
Photo by Danika Worthington

Navajo Nation Dishonors Legacy of Klee Benally: Agrees to Uranium Transport Through Navajo Communities

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, February 3, 2025

French translation by Christine Prat

https://chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=8526

The Navajo Nation dishonored the memory and legacy of Klee Benally by agreeing to allow radioactive uranium trucks to travel through the Navajo Nation. It was what Klee spent the last years of his life fighting against.

The deadly trucks from the Energy Fuels Pinyon Plain uranium mine in the Grand Canyon will pass through the Havasupai's homeland, and then past the homes of Paiute, Dine' and Hopi in Arizona before reaching the dumping ground: The Energy Fuels uranium mill in the White Mesa Ute Community in Southern Utah.

Klee is being honored with a Nuclear Free Futures Award in New York in March.

Nuclear Free Futures said, in announcing the award, "Klee Benally was a Navajo activist and musician and member of the Navajo Tódich'ii'nii Clan and the Nakai Diné Clan. In addition to a musical career with his siblings in the band Blackfire,

"Klee was a passionate campaigner and filmmaker exposing the colonialist legacy of uranium mines and working for the cleanup of the more than 500 abandoned uranium mines that continue to contaminate the Navajo Nation. A month before his death on December 30, 2023, Klee published his book, “No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.”

The award will be accepted by his mother Berta Benally.

Klee, co-founder of Haul No!, warned of the danger to the water and rivers from the uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and the planned deadly transport of radioactive ore, before he passed in December 2023.

"There is possible radioactive contamination to land, water, and air from the Canyon Mine, White Mesa Mill, and transport of uranium would impact northern Arizona, southeast Utah, the Colorado River, Moenkopi Wash, the San Juan River, and the lands and cultural resources of the Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo, Ute, and Paiute peoples."

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/haul_no/?hl=en

Moving Nuclear Waste from one Native Community to another Native Community is No Solution -- and Endangers Everyone on the Deadly Haul Route

Haul No! will host an online forum Tuesday, February 4, starting at 6:30 p.m. for updates and to voice your concerns. Link to register in the chat. Instagram https://www.instagram.com/haul_no/?hl=en

Haul NO! said that on January 29, 2025, Energy Fuels announced that it reached an agreement with Navajo Nation regarding uranium ore transport, ending the temporary transportation pause.

"The agreement includes provisions for Energy Fuels to take 10,000 tons of abandoned uranium mine waste from Navajo Nation to the White Mesa Mill, in Utah impacting our Ute relatives."

"On January 30, 2025, Energy Fuels announced transport of uranium ore from Pinyon Plain uranium mine across Western Navajo Nation to the White Mesa Mill may begin on or around February 12, 2025," Haul NO!

The Ongoing Deception and Genocidal Acts of the U.S. Government

The U.S. EPA has misled the public. Although it constantly announces new sites of abandoned uranium mines to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation -- it doesn't actually clean up the 524 sites, and there are strewn radioactive tailings remaining from Cold War uranium mining.

Eric Jantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Jantz pointed out that the U.S. appears to want Native people to sacrifice more for "national security" -- rather than to deal with the devastation. As for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it has not honored public comments. And as for the EPA, it's too late. There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the Commission in March of 2024.

"Our ancestors remains were desecrated to build the mill," Anferny Badback, Ute Mountain Ute at White  Mesa, told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington. Badback testified that Energy Fuels uranium mill has contaminated the groundwater, plants, birds, wildlife, and air in his community in southeastern Utah.

The young people are getting asthma, and the people can no longer use their spring water for ceremonies. Ute must buy bottled water to drink, and no longer hunt because of the contamination. Now, the mill is bringing in international waste and has become a low-level radioactive waste repository, because of the lax standards of the state of Utah. "We want the mill to be shut down," Badback told the Commission.

Carletta Tilousi, Havasupai, testified that uranium mining contamination at Pinyon Plain mine is now threatening the water supply of Havasupai in their homeland. he uranium min is located above the aquifer, at the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

"This is a serious urgent case," Tilousi told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington.

The Havasupai Tribe asked the Commission to present their case to the Inter-American Court to seek an order requiring the adoption of provisional measures.

"Pinyon Plain mine can not be allowed to continue."

"There was no respect for the people living on these lands, and certainly no respect for Mother Earth," Edith Hood, Dine' from Red Water Pond Road community, told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

"The government was aware of the risks and the dangers but failed and neglected to inform our people," testified Hood, who lives down the road from Church Rock, New Mexico, the site of the worst radioactive spill in U.S. history.

Dine', Havasupai, Northern Arapaho, Oglala Lakota and White Mesa Ute testified on uranium exploitation by the United States on Wednesday, during the session, "Impacts of Uranium Exploitation on Indigenous Peoples' Rights."

The BIA, EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission praised themselves, and attempted to cover-up the legacy of death from uranium mining, strewn radioactive waste, and deadly uranium mills in Indian country, Censored News reported.

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/02/navajo-ute-lakota-to-testify-on-uranium.html

In the agreement with the Navajo Nation, announced on January 29, 2025, to transport radioactive uranium ore through the Navajo Nation, Energy Fuels listed the terms of the agreement. The company said the ore from Energy Fuels' Pinyon Plain Mine will be processed at the White Mesa Mill into  uranium concentrates (U3O8), which are used in the production of baseload nuclear energy.

https://investors.energyfuels.com/2025-01-29-Energy-Fuels,-Navajo-Nation-Department-of-Justice,-and-Navajo-Nation-Environmental-Protection-Agency-Sign-Landmark-Agreement-on-Uranium-Ore-Transport-and-Abandoned-Mine-Cleanup

Photo courtesy Klee Benally June 19, 2017

Haul NO! Tour Report Back 2017
https://www.indigenousaction.org/haul-no-tour-report-back-part-1/


Klee Benally "No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred"
Purchase online at:
https://detritusbooks.com/products/no-spiritual-surrender-indigenous-anarchy-in-defense-of-the-sacred

Prayer Horse Ride Prepares for Sacred Journey 2025

Prayer Horse Ride photo by David Calvert

   Prayer Horse Ride Prepares for Sacred Journey 

Prayer Horse Ride's Fourth Annual March Ride Begins March 21st in Schurz, Nevada: Reconnecting and Revitalizing Traditional Ways of Life Threatened

by Destructive Mining Resource Extractions Supporting 'Green Energy' Transition

By Prayer Horse Ride, Censored News

SCHURZ, Nevada -- The Prayer Horse Ride is getting ready to begin our 4th annual sacred journey March 21st – April 2nd, across Nevada in the ancestral lands of the Numu (Paiute) and Newe (Shoshone), through Yerington, Fallon, Wadsworth, Nixon, Lovelock to McDermitt, and ending near Orovada, honoring Peehee Mu'huh (Thacker Pass in the McDermitt Caldera).

Rival Chinese and U.S. Companies Respond to Controversial Questions from Indian Country

Standing Rock 2016. Photo by Ryan Vizzions.

Rival Chinese and U.S. Companies Respond to Controversial Questions from Indian Country

Today: U.S. ChatGPT's Failed Responses

The new U.S. ChatGPT, financed by billionaires, obtained a contract to serve U.S. agencies with information this week. We asked the search platform questions about Standing Rock, and the upcoming case Energy Transfer v. Greenpeace and Red Warrior Society.

It failed to provide the correct answers more than a dozen times. It repeatedly gave outdated and incorrect information. After an hour of being unable to answer basic questions, which are stated in court documents, it finally gave up and said: "You've reached our limit of messages for the hour."

It did not correctly identify Heath Harmon as an FBI informant. It did not even give the correct names of the defendants shown in the upcoming court case, Energy Transfer v. Greenpeace and Red Warrior Society. It gave information that was three years old involving Energy Transfer's subpoena issued to Unicorn Riot media.

In our questions today, we asked who was identified in the court document as a defendant and member of the Red Warrior Society. The search platform repeatedly was unable to answer, and tossed out various names every time it was asked. As can be seen here, it incorrectly identified Clyde Bellecourt as the leader of Red Warrior Society. We pointed out that Clyde was co-founder of the American Indian Movement, not the Red Warrior Society.

Our research reveals that this industry planning to make big money off of other peoples data with AI, artificial intelligence, is deeply flawed, and potentially dangerous.

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Updated Feb. 1, 2025

We asked the rival Chinese-owned and U.S.-backed search platforms a series of controversial questions from Indian country, on torture in residential schools, critical injuries of water protectors at Standing Rock, bordertown racism in Rapid City, and federal lawsuits filed against Deb Haaland while she was Interior Secretary.

We asked if the Rio Puerco wash, flowing by Navajo communities, was contaminated by the Church Rock uranium spill. We also asked who were the Lakota Red Warriors.

Controversial Search Engines Do Not Reveal U.S. Interior's Failure to Report Thousands of Boarding School Deaths

Controversial Search Engines Do Not Reveal U.S. Interior's Failure to Report on Thousands of Boarding School Deaths

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, January 30, 2025

The controversial new search platforms owned by a Chinese company, DeepSeek, and U.S. billionaires, ChatGPT, did not respond accurately to the question of the U.S. Interior's failed report on the number of deaths of Native children in U.S. boarding schools.

Leonard Peltier's Conviction: Chinese and U.S. Search Platforms Respond Differently to Case

Leonard Peltier's Conviction: Chinese and U.S. Search Platforms Respond Differently to Case

Leonard Peltier's Conviction: Chinese and U.S. Search Platforms Respond Differently to the Case. The Responses Reveal a Flaw: The AI Platforms are Not Up to Date. 

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, January 30, 2025

Was Leonard Peltier unfairly convicted? The Chinese-owned DeepSeek, and the U.S. backed ChatGPT search platforms, responded differently when asked if Leonard Peltier was unfairly convicted of killing two FBI agents.

The responses show a major flaw in AI, artificial intelligence, search platforms. They are not current. Both search platforms failed to show Peltier was granted clemency last week by President Biden, with a release date of February 18, 2025.