Kayapó Forest Defenders Urge United Nations to Help Halt Illegal Gold Mining in Brazil

Doto Takak Ire, leader of the Menkragnoti Indigenous Land 📷 Fred Mauro/Terra Floresta Filmes/ISA

Kayapó Forest Defenders Urge United Nations to Help Halt Illegal Gold Mining in Brazil

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, July 23, 2024

GENEVA -- Indigenous from Brazil urged the United Nations to join them and demand Brazil halt illegal gold mining, and its mercury contamination, now destroying the ancestral homelands of Kayapó, Yanomami and Munduruku Peoples, during the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Doto Takak Ire, Mebêngôkre, said, "The Kayapó are still warriors and we will always be defenders of the forests."

Yaqui Disappeared and Assassinated Not Included in New UN Human Rights Report

Tomas Rojo, spokesman for Vicam Yaqui Traditional Authority, assassinated

Yaqui Disappeared and Assassinated Not Included in New UN Human Rights Report

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Sept. 11, 2023

Tomas Rojo was someone I knew. In his gentle way, he explained how Traditional Vicam Yaqui were protecting the Yaqui River water from being stolen for an aqueduct for the city of Hermosillo. Tomas was the spokesman for Traditional Vicam Yaqui, and they maintained a highway blockade for years to protect their water.

Tomas was bludgeoned to death and left in the desert.

Nearby, Loma de Bacum Yaqui were going for a cow for a traditional feast, when 10 community members were disappeared. They were traditional security guards opposing a gas pipeline in their village.

It is sad to see that these, and the other assassinations and disappearances in Mexico, south of the Arizona border, are not included in the new report on militarization to the UN Human Rights Council.

The United Nations has failed to take seriously the epidemic of assassinations and disappearances of Indigenous Peoples, by mining and development corporations based in Canada, the United States and Australia, and to hold the governments, military and law enforcement responsible for their crimes -- including Mexico.

U.S. and Canada Among Top Violators of Indigenous Rights: Mining, Militarization and Boarding Schools

Paiute Shoshone elders and mothers defending the unmarked burial place of Paiutes massacred here, are now being sued by Lithium Americas of Canada.

U.S. and Canada Among Top Violators of Indigenous Rights: Mining, Militarization and Boarding Schools

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, August 1, 2023

French translation by Christine Prat

Published today on Indybay

GENEVA -- The United States and Canada are among the top countries violating the human rights of Indigenous Peoples, with mining companies based in the U.S. and Canada linked to assassinations of Native people around the world, Indigenous told the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The United States is responsible for accelerating the crimes against humanity with its endless war, resulting in the deaths of millions of innocent people, which benefits its war manufacturers.

Canada's long history of abuse of Native people includes the mandate for churches to seize Native children from their families and institutionalize them in residential schools, resulting in abuse, torture and murder, and generations of trauma. The Pope confirmed the Catholic Church was responsible for the genocide of Native people in 2022. Currently, Mohawk Mothers in Montreal are monitoring the search for graves at McGill University, the site of a CIA torture site.