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| Navajo and Apache children in captivity in Fort Sumner, Bosque Redondo, who survived the Longest Walk. Photo courtesy New Mexico State Monuments. |
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
The following comments by Louise Benally of Big Mountain, comparing the Long Walk and imprisonment in Bosque Redondo to the war in Iraq, were censored by Indian Country Today. Pressed to publish a correction to the published article by this reporter, the newspaper refused.
Louise's comments came as the bombs fell on Baghdad, and before I was terminated as a longtime staff reporter in 2006. With the United States current propaganda of war, we are publishing Louise's comments again.
Article by Brenda Norrell
Navajos at Big Mountain resisting forced relocation view the 19th Century prison camp of Bosque Redondo and the war in Iraq as a continuum of U.S. government sponsored terror.
Louise Benally of Big Mountain remembered her great-grandfather and other Navajos driven from their beloved homeland by the U.S. Army on foot for hundreds of miles while witnessing the murder, rape and starvation of their family and friends.
“I think these poor children had gone through so much, but, yet they had the will to go on and live their lives. If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t be here today.
“It makes me feel very sad and I apply this to the situation in Iraq. I wonder how the Native Americans in the combat zone feel about killing innocent lives.”
Looking at the faces of the Navajo and Apache children in the Bosque Redondo photo, Benally said, “I think the children in the picture look concerned and maybe confused. It makes me think of what the children in Iraq must be going through right now.
“The U.S. military first murders your people and destroys your way of life while stealing your culture, then forces you to learn their evil ways of lying and cheating,” Benally said.
Louise Benally of Big Mountain remembered her great-grandfather and other Navajos driven from their beloved homeland by the U.S. Army on foot for hundreds of miles while witnessing the murder, rape and starvation of their family and friends.
“I think these poor children had gone through so much, but, yet they had the will to go on and live their lives. If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t be here today.
“It makes me feel very sad and I apply this to the situation in Iraq. I wonder how the Native Americans in the combat zone feel about killing innocent lives.”
Looking at the faces of the Navajo and Apache children in the Bosque Redondo photo, Benally said, “I think the children in the picture look concerned and maybe confused. It makes me think of what the children in Iraq must be going through right now.
“The U.S. military first murders your people and destroys your way of life while stealing your culture, then forces you to learn their evil ways of lying and cheating,” Benally said.
The newspaper refused to publish a correction:
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410763
Buffy Sainte Marie at Dine' College, which were censored by Indian Country Today in 1999. Buffy described how Presidents Reagan and Nixon blacklisted her out of the music industry in the U.S. because of her stance against the war in Vietnam, and her song, 'Universal Soldier.'
How Woodrow Wilson's Propaganda Machine Changed American Journalism
Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News, may not be used without permission.
