Hopi singer and composer Ryon Polequaptewa, spoke on the sacred cedar which lends itself to make the Hopi flute, and of the sacred space of Hopi, where there is "very little rain, but an abundance of life." Listen to his performance at Rumble on the Mountain. Screenshot by Censored News. Watch https://www.facebook.com/edkabotie
Songs from the Water
Rumble on the Mountain 10: Native Voices of the Colorado Plateau in opposition to uranium mining in the Grand Canyon
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, February 3, 2024
FLAGSTAFF, Arizona -- In a beautiful tribute, Ed Kabotie, Hopi, performed "The Trail," honoring those who have passed, making their journey among the stars, during the seven-hour Rumble on the Mountain at the Orpheum Theater on Saturday.
Ward Valley: Halting a Nuclear Dump on Sacred Land. Photos by Molly Johnson
Censored around the world, the film Trespassing tells the story of the successful protest and halt to a radioactive waste dump at Ward Valley, led by Mojave and Colorado River Indian Nations. It shows the impacts of the atomic bomb testing on Western Shoshone and shares the words of Laguna Pueblo uranium miner Dorothy Purely. She died from cancer as the film was being made. A Dineh uranium miner from Red Valley on the Navajo Nation says they were never told of the danger of the radioactive dust where they ate their lunch. We interviewed filmmaker Carlos Demenezes in Tucson, where the film won a prestigious award in 2006 while being rejected globally. At Ward Valley in the Mojave Desert, the protests spanned years, with AIM and the resistance facing off with the Bureau of Land Management on the isolated dirt road into the camp, for the protection of the desert tortoise and sacred mountain. The radioactive dump could have poisoned the water of the Colorado River, a source of water for millions. This powerful film was rejected by Sundance Film Festival twice, and most of the leading film festivals in the world after its release. The horrors of uranium mining and the nuclear industry of the U.S. government and its corporate partners, continue in a trail of cancer and death.
Santa Fe, NM - Today, the Greater Chaco Coalition/Frack Off Chaco, composed of environmental justice advocates, Indigenous grassroots organizations, tribal community leaders, and members of the public, rallied and delivered nearly 80,000 comments to the Bureau of Land Management demanding greater protections for the Greater Chaco Landscape and surrounding communities from expanded oil and gas activities.
Photo courtesy WildEarth Guardians
Today's rally coincided with the deadline to submit comments on the Bureau of Land Management's proposal to stop new oil and gas leasing for a 20-year period on roughly 350,000 acres of land within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park. More than 20 people attended the rally and participants contributed their name and comments to an artistic display of what it means to truly 'Honor Greater Chaco'.
Hidden Genocide -- Genocide in Canada is now confirmed with the location of widespread hidden graves of children who were kidnapped and incarcerated in residential schools. Survivors describe the murder of children.
In the U.S., the widespread deaths resulting from the U.S. government's reckless nuclear industry is genocide often hidden from history.
Nuclear energy left a trail of cancer deaths with the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Trinity in south-central New Mexico. The largest radioactive spill was at Church Rock, New Mexico, leaving a trail of death for Dine' (Navajos.) This radiation now flows west in the Rio Puerco wash toward Flagstaff, Arizona.
The targeting of Native communities went further in New Mexico and Arizona, as Navajo and Pueblo were sent to their deaths in the uranium mines without protective clothing. The radioactive dust covered their food, and the grass for livestock; miners brought the death dust home to their families on their clothing.
This reckless genocide was repeated at uranium mines in Native communities in Cove and elsewhere on the Navajo Nation, in Acoma and Laguna Pueblos, and throughout the west.
As far away as Canada, uranium mining left behind a trail of cancer deaths for Dene.
The recklessness of the U.S. government left behind a trail of cancer for Western Shoshone in Nevada from atomic bomb detonations. The U.S. continues this nuclear recklessness by pursuing Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste dumping. There is no safe way to store nuclear waste.
John Redhouse, Dine', was among the first Dine' to rise up in the defense of land and water rights in modern times.
Acoma Pueblo Petuuche Gilbert 'Kaweshti' Sacred Mount Taylor' Video in English/French Video interview and French translation by Christine Prat Watch above or at: https://vimeo.com/254939720
Petuuche Gilbert, Acoma Pueblo, speaks of the sacredness of Mount Taylor, and how Spanish Conquistadors enslaved and cut off the feet of Acoma men who were over 20 years old when they struggled to protect their sacred land from the invaders. Their visitors, Hopi, told them how the Conquistadors cut off their hands. Petuuche said the Conquistadors meant to send a message to others that would resist the Conquistadors invasions into their homelands.
Petuuche speaks of Sky City and Kaweshti in the distance.j
(Video 4 minutes and 26 seconds)
The City of Santa Fe has used Pueblo history and culture to sell itself. It has turned the Sacred into its commodity. Now, as Native people protest to halt the glamorizing of Conquistadors, and instead promote accurate history, the City of Santa Fe responds with excessive force and a power play of criminal charges -- all by the same profiteering and oppressive forces that have turned Native culture into Santa Fe's cash economy.
The targeting of The Red Nation by police does not come as a surprise. The broadcast of Red Nation's excellent interviews on Standing Rock Spirit Resistance Radio were interfered with by outside forces, making it impossible for us to share these interviews with the radio stations across the country who were rebroadcasting the programs from Oceti Sakowin last fall.
Read The Red Nation's statement on Friday's action and arrests.
Brenda Norrell, Censored News
UPDATE: Jennifer Marley has been released
By The Red Nation
Censored News
On Friday, September 8, approximately two hundred people rallied in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico to demand that the City of Santa Fe abolish the racist reenactment of reconquest known as the Entrada (“the entry”) and to bring attention to illegal fracking in Chaco Canyon, a site that is sacred to Diné and Pueblo people. The rally was led by The Red Nation (TRN), UNM KIVA Club, In the Spirit of Po’Pay, and New Mexico Showing Up for Racial Justice (NM-SURJ), as well as various other Native and non-Native groups.
The City ignored a statementissued by the #AbolishTheEntrada coalition prior to the protest encouraging officials to stand with us in denouncing racism and the celebration of genocide and conquest. They instead chose to double down on their defense of racism and violent colonial revisionist history by brutalizing Indigenous people and violating their First Amendment rights. On Friday, in Santa Fe, history didn’t repeat itself — it stayed the same.
Indigenous people undergo ongoing brutalization by armed men of the state who uphold white supremacy and settler colonialism on stolen Pueblo land. Today, conquistadors and cavalrymen simply wear different uniforms. But the tactics remain the same.
Police targeted, pulled from a crowd, and arrested TRN leader Jennifer Marley.
Protesters faced obstacles before the protest, which was scheduled to start at 1 PM MST. Around 11 AM social media posts began to circulate alerting protesters to the decision by Los Caballeros de Vargas to start the reenactment two hours earlier than the scheduled time of 2 PM. Although Manuel Garcia, the President of Los Caballeros, claims the time change was made several days prior, the announcement was not issued until late Friday morning. Although clearly a tactic to silence public dissent, the eleventh hour decision neither deterred nor demoralized protesters.
From mid-morning onward, social media posts and photos showed extensive police presence, what the Santa Fe New Mexican called a “small army of police officers”. With state, city, and county forces on the ground, it is clear that the City intended to wield the power of the state to further censor #AbolishTheEntrada protests.
Sniper nests were posted atop buildings.
But protesters would not be silenced. At noon, five Indigenous women were the first to arrive. Slowly, hundreds joined them filling the streets. Entire families came out with their children. Native students from nearby colleges such as the Institute of American Indian Arts and University of New Mexico (UNM) joined. Standing on the right side of history, every walk of life came together in unison to demand the abolition of the racist Entrada. The City of Santa Fe stood as it has for centuries: on the side of conquest; on the wrong side of history, with blood on its hands.
In a further attempt to silence constitutionally protected free speech, the Santa Fe police captain Adam Gallegos took to the mic on the Plaza stage to announce that the event permit holders wanted to limit protest to a designated “Free Speech Zone.” The “Free Speech Zone” was a heavily-guarded police barricade that was meant to corral protesters and force them off public space. Of questionable constitutional or legal validity, this “Free Speech Zone” had a clear political message: shut up and go away or you will be silenced and arrested. The Santa Fe Police Department and Los Caballeros De Vargas made the unconscionable decision to not only keep protesters out-of-sight and out-of-earshot by limiting their First Amendment right to free speech, but they also dehumanized Native people by corralling them — just like conquistadors and cavalrymen of the past who forced Native men, women, children and elders into heavily-policed and surveilled open air concentration camps like Fort Sumner. Again, the racist message was loud and clear: go back to the reservation or get arrested; Indians are not welcome here.
After several other protesters were arrested, our very own TRN-Albuquerque leader and UNM KIVA Club Vice-President, Jennifer Marley (San Ildefonso Pueblo), was seized. Jennifer is a leader in efforts to #AbolishTheEntrada. The Santa Fe Police knew this. It is clear to us that she was targeted for arrest and harassment by police specifically because she is a high-profile leader of the resistance. Multiple videos of her arrest show several male officers violently grabbing Jennifer without provocation, slamming her to the ground and aggressively pinning her arms behind her. Officers then paraded her through the streets where she was verbally assaulted by bystanders jeering “Go back to where you came from!”
The parading of Jennifer through the streets of downtown Santa Fe parallels a long history of parading captured Indigenous prisoners of war as trophies on their way to concentration camps called reservations. An eyewitness to the arrest, TRN organizer Demetrius Johnson (Diné) recounts,
“During the Long Walk, in the very beginning the cavalry would purposefully take us [Diné] through Santa Fe, Las Vegas, and all the way back down to Fort Sumner. They did that to humiliate us, but also to lift morale for the soldiers and these [white] towns. That’s what these police officers did to [Jennifer Marley] yesterday. They cleared that whole street and walked down this vendor line with her in the front. Parading her like, ‘look, we caught her.’ But what they didn’t know is that it didn’t lower our morale, like they hoped, but instead made it stronger.”
While Santa Fe sent its weakest men armed to the hilt to defend the City’s genocidal pageantry, we sent our strongest women armed only with their love for Indigenous peoples and lands.
Weeks earlier, the City of Santa Fe welcomed Indigenous artists at the annual SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market. On Friday, Native people faced an entirely different scene. Police created a militarized zone with sniper nests, barricades, and processing tables for mass arrests to protect a racist celebration of genocide. In this “Free Speech Zone,” protesters were surveilled under the oppressive gaze of the police state. The City loves to exploit Indigenous art and culture because of the cash flow it brings to City coffers. But at the first sign of Native political demands for human rights and justice, what does the City do? It pursues an aggressive campaign to silence and criminalize Indigenous people by unleashing the full force of the police state on Indigenous women, children, and elders, pointing guns at them and arresting them for “criminal trespass” on their own ancestral lands.
The City of Santa Fe is guilty of criminal trespass on the lands and bodies of Pueblo people, not Pueblo people themselves.
The police were so empowered after Jennifer’s arrest that they arrested an Indigenous man, Julian Rodriguez, who had nothing to do with the protest. Eyewitnesses report that Mr. Rodriguez was walking down the street with his partner when police officers stopped him and asked him to remove his bandana. He removed it and then put it back on as he walked away. He was then arrested and charged with “criminal trespassing.” In a clear case of racial profiling consistent with the City’s racist message to silence Native people for resisting dehumanization, Mr. Rodriguez was made a criminal simply for being Native in Santa Fe. He was “off the reservation” and therefore open to arrest.
As Jennifer Marley stated prior to the protest,
“We don’t expect the cops to protect us now or ever. In fact we expect intensified police brutality, and intensified violence from Entrada attendees. The lengths [to which] the city is going to police this event with firearms and even police from departments all across the state is disgusting. But what it does tell us is that Pueblo resistance is a true threat to them. Their cowardice is a show of our strength and potential to make cracks in the settler colonial project!”
Despite dozens of live streaming feeds (see below) that documented this cowardice as it was unfolding, Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales did nothing to stop the police free-for-all against peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders. Instead, Mayor Gonzales took to social media Friday afternoon to thank the Santa Fe police officers who “helped maintain public safety.” To detract from the actual repression he promoted, he euphemistically called the arrest and censorship of Native people and allies “a very difficult conversation” that “move[d] forward” as a result of the day’s events.
How can we move forward when Santa Fe uses spectacular violence to silence Native free speech? When it so brazenly and unmercifully profiles, harasses, brutalizes, intimidates, and humiliates Native men, women, and children? When it continues to celebrate genocide and settler revisionist history?
A month prior to the Entrada protest, hundreds of white supremacists and Nazis descended on Charlottesville, Virginia to protect the “history and heritage” of racist Confederate monuments similar to the Entrada reenactment. Police stood down to protect Nazis’ right to free speech in Charlottesville, but came out in full force to prevent Natives’ free speech in Santa Fe. One Nazi, James A. Fields, drove his car into a crowd of protesters, injuring dozens and killing anti-racist protester, Heather Heyer. Last February, Santa Fe Police Union chief Troy Baker posted a meme that read “ALL LIVES SPLATTER” to his Facebook page encouraging murderers like Fields to run over protesters exercising their First Amendment rights. Baker is still employed with the Santa Fe Police Department.
Clearly, Santa Fe police officers are inclined towards violence against those demonstrating their First Amendment rights. As history has shown, Nazis, racists, and white supremacists are never brutalized by police; it is always people of color, women, non-gender conforming people, the poor, and Natives who are. In other words, it is always those who challenge power and oppression who are met with the full force of the police state. Yesterday was no different. Claiming it was because they did not want “anyone getting hurt,” Santa Fe police protected Los Caballeros and their followers at the behest of City officials. The lone white racist pro-Entrada protester, Richard Polese, arrived at the #AbolishTheEntrada protest with a full police escort. Meanwhile, Entrada protesters did get hurt, all at the hands of the police.
They can arrest us, but they cannot kill or imprison this movement. Native people will never relinquish our human rights to move and speak freely on our own lands.
Prior to the protest, the #AbolishTheEntrada coalition undertook a public education campaign to explain why celebrating a crime against humanity — genocide — is wrong. These organizations also asked the City to stop violating the “separation of church and state” clause of the First Amendment because the Entrada is a Catholic Church-run event that is partially funded by public tax money: the lodgers tax. It is worth noting that Indian Market is the largest annual event in Santa Fe that draws over 80,000 visitors each year. These visitors pay a lodgers tax every time they book a room for Indian Market. Not only does the City make a killing off of lodgers tax revenues from Indian Market, but it uses these revenues to fund a celebration of genocide. It exploits Native labor, then uses profits from that exploitation to dehumanize Native people.
This is called anti-Indianism, and Santa Fe is anti-Indian to its core.
While we continue to work towards total Indigenous liberation, it is not too much to ask that the colonizer uphold his own laws set forth in the First Amendment. The City of Santa Fe has deliberately rejected Pueblo and Native concerns despite several peaceful attempts since 1977 to ask the City to stop celebrating conquest and genocide. It has instead offered empty gestures of “dialogue” and “conversation” while also aggressively pursuing censorship and violent repression.
In other words, the City has a long track record of denying Indigenous people free speech and fundamental human rights. This must end NOW.
In closing, The Red Nation issues the following demands to the City of Santa Fe:
DEMAND #1: RELEASE JENNIFER MARLEY IMMEDIATELY. As of approximately 1:30 PM MST on Saturday, September 9th, all of those arrested have been released except for Jennifer Marley, who now faces five counts — both felonies and misdemeanors — of battery of a peace officer, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct. This is a clear case of a strong freedom fighter and leader being persecuted for political dissent. Jennifer is a political prisoner. Her political act is defined as criminal by the state to discredit the Indigenous liberation movement because it is gaining momentum and legitimacy in New Mexico. The political act of protesting genocide is reduced to a criminal act to affirm the absolute invulnerability of the existing order. In other words, Santa Fe criminalizes Native people to justify its own criminal behavior.
DEMAND #2:DROP ALL CHARGES against those arrested. As of now, there were eight confirmed arrests. Those who were arrested include Chad Brown Eagle, Julian Rodriguez, Nicole Ullerich, Trenton Ward, Carmen Stone, Jennifer Haley, Sierra Logan, and Jennifer Marley. The Santa Fe police department has also charged several of those arrested with felonies, after the fact, in an attempt to justify the outrageous charges of “criminal trespass” in a public plaza. Anyone with a basic knowledge of trespass law knows “criminal trespass” is reserved for trespassing on private property, not public property.
DEMAND #3: ABOLISH THE ENTRADA
We ask that people flood the Mayor’s office with calls, emails, tweets, and Facebook posts to demand Jennifer Marley’s release; all charges against all protesters are dropped; and that the Entrada is abolished:
Originally posted on April 6, 2010, it is reposted today in Memory of Margene Bullcreek
Margene Bullcreek, Goshute, points out Indian Nations continue to be targeted with nuclear waste dumping. “We’ve been targeted with environmental racism and genocide long enough.”
Video by Seventh Generation Fund Article by Brenda Norrell, Censored News Listen and watch the Native American environmental movement icons of this era!
ACOMA PUEBLO, N.M. During the 7th Annual Uranium Summit in 2009, Norman Patrick Brown,
Navajo, said there’s over 1,000 radioactive tailings sites today on the Navajo Nation. “How does one heal a land, how does one heal a person's DNA? How does one reclaim a sacred site?”
John Redhouse, among the Navajos who led the movement to halt the destruction, describes how Navajos suffered without compensation.
Louise Benally, Navajo from Big Mountain, father tells how her father died of leukemia after working in the uranium industry. “It took someone that I dearly loved away from me.”
Manny Pino, Acoma Pueblo, describes how some Acoma and Laguna never earned a cent from the uranium industry, but they suffered.
Charmaine White Face, Lakota, describes the uranium contamination in Lakotas water.
Today, the uranium mining industry has once again targeted this same areas of the Navajo Nation and Dakotas, and elsewhere in Indian country.
Margene Bullcreek, Goshute, points out Indian Nations continue to be targeted with nuclear waste dumping. “We’ve been targeted with environmental racism and genocide long enough.”
