Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

September 21, 2021

Zapatistas 'Chiapas on the Verge of Civil War'


Zapatistas Tour for Life delegation in Vienna, Austria, protests in front of Mexico's Embassy. Photos Radio Zapatisa
https://radiozapatista.org/?p=39527



Chiapas on the Verge of Civil War

Communique from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation


September 19, 2021

To the people of Mexico:
To the peoples of the world:
To the Sixth in Mexico and abroad:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:

First: On September 11, 2021, in the early morning, while the Zapatista air delegation was in Mexico City, members of ORCAO – a paramilitary organization serving the Chiapas state government – kidnapped the compañeros Sebastián Nuñez Pérez and José Antonio Sánchez Juárez, autonomous authorities from the Good Government Council of Patria Nueva [New Homeland], Chiapas.

The ORCAO is a political-military organization with paramilitary characteristics: they have uniforms, equipment, weapons, and ammunition purchased with money they receive from [government-sponsored] “social programs”. They keep part of the money for themselves and use part of it to pay off government officials for reporting that they [the ORCAO] are complying with the terms of the social programs. They fire on the Zapatista community of Moisés y Gandhi every night with these weapons.

September 19, 2021

Censored News Celebrates 15 years Publishing Voices from the Land


Censored News Celebrates 15 years of Publishing Voices from the Land

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

We are celebrating 15 years of publishing at Censored News. It was 15 years ago that I was terminated as a staff writer at Indian Country Today, after being censored. The editors threatened me, with termination, if I did not stop writing about grassroots Indigenous People. The threat was in writing. The newspaper had been sold to the new owners, a New York tribal government, in the late 1990s.

There was not only the censorship of Native people who live on the land, but there were the hidden agendas and other forms of censorship. The truth about casinos was forbidden -- the Las Vegas casino owners who exploited tribal sovereignty, the white casino management companies who hid the profits, and the detriment to local communities. There was also the cover-ups of the Washington DC wannabes -- both politicians and non-profits who benefited with power and money.

Today, we are happy to share with you, now 15 years later, those grassroots voices, the voices of Natives who live on the land, which the newspaper attempted to silence all those years ago in September of 2006. We lost some of our friends and great writers and voices who began with us, Lakota Debra White Plume, Yaqui Ceremonial Leader Jose Matus, and many others.

Still, today we have so many great friends and writers that continue with us at Censored News. We don't have advertising, secret grants, salaries or revenues, so there are no cash prizes, but we send out a heart-felt thanks to all of you who believed in us, helped us continue, and made Censored News one of a kind, free from the dollars and control of the exploiters and profiteers.

Thank you, Brenda. https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Photos: Debra White Plume giving the masquerading Lewis and Clark Expedition a symbolic blanket of small pox on the Missouri River in Chamberlain, South Dakota. Louise Benally of Big Mountain speaking out for the protection of the aquifer water stolen by Peabody Coal and the Navajo Generating Station on the Navajo Nation. 

Buffy Sainte Marie singing at Dine' College, where she was censored by Indian Country Today, when she described being blacklisted out of the U.S. music industry by Presidents Reagan and Johnson. Yaqui Ceremonial Leader Jose Matus in the mountains of Chiapas, serving as a human rights shield in a village as the Mexican government continued its assassinations of Zapatistas in 1995.

Onboard the trucks to the Zapatista stronghold near the Guatemala border in Chiapas. Tohono O'odham Mike Flores and Mohawk Mark Maracle at the Indigenous People Border Summit.

Gilbert Badoni, displays a family poster of Cold War uranium when he was a child. Even today, the radioactive tailings remain strewn in the Shiprock, N.M., region on the Navajo Nation.

Anishinaabe songmaster Keith Secola, and the unforgettable Lakota Floyd Westerman, supporting the Indigenous Border Summit on San Xavier, Tohono O'odham Nation, 2006. Photos by Brenda Norrell.

Ian Zabarte: 'Media silent on nuclear dumping scheme targeting Yucca Mountain and Texas'

Western Shoshone Ian Zabarte Photo Brent Holmes




Native Community Action Council
P.O. Box 46301
Las Vegas, NV 89114
www.nativecommunityactioncouncil.org

MEDIA ALERT Friday, September 17, 2021
Contact: Ian Zabarte, Secretary


This letter is to express concern about the lack of reporting on nuclear issues threatening Nevada. On Monday, September 13, 2021, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a 40- year license to Interim Storage partners, a private company to store 5,000 metric tons of commercial high-level nuclear waste in Andrews County Texas. The Texas site license application was issued based upon the eventual licensing of the proposed Yucca Mountain site currently undergoing licensing at the NRC.

In 2018, Ian Zabarte, Secretary of the Native Community Action Council (NCAC) was appointed to the NRC Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel in advance of the continued licensing of the proposed Yucca Mountain site. According to Secretary Zabarte, “We have a vulnerable tourism-based economy in Las Vegas and Nevada that needs public awareness to protect. We have the oldest life on earth in the Great Basin that needs protection from the most toxic material on earth. The “fourth estate” must act now to bring attention and focus all hands against transportation across Nevada to Texas and potentially back to Yucca Mountain” Stated Zabarte

The NCAC is a “party with standing” in the NRC Atomic Safety Licensing Board Panel Docket 63-001, Yucca Mountain, presenting the only contentions of ownership of land and water required by 10 CFR Part 60.121. The Department of Energy has failed to meet the Ownership as documented by the NRC Safety Evaluation Report Related to Disposal of High-Level Radioactive Wastes in a Geologic Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada: Administrative and Programmatic Requirements (NUREG-1949, Volume 4):

The NRC staff finds that DOE has not met the requirements 10 CFR 63.121(a) and 10 CFR 63.121(d)(1) regarding ownership of land and water rights, respectively.

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1949/v4/index.htm

Read more:
Nuclear Waste in an Oil Patch?
A site in West Texas now has a federal license to store spent nuclear fuel, setting up a potential showdown with state leaders who oppose the prospect of attracting high-level radioactive waste from across the country. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced the license for Interim Storage Partners LLC to build and operate an interim storage facility in Andrews County, Texas, on Monday — just days after Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill seeking to restrict nuclear waste storage in the state.

September 18, 2021

Dine' Weaver Jane Benale's Weaving: The Radioactive Uranium Dust Came Home from Mines on Clothes


Image: Ann Collier, Kim Hahn (Korean), Jane Benale (Diné), Malcom Benally (Diné) , When They Came Home, 2017, Clothing: dyed wool, silver, turquois, cotton, silk organza. Photo by Chelsea Darter.


By Institute of American Indian Arts 
Museum of Contemporary Arts
Censored News

During the Cold War through 1986, mainly men, working in the mines came home with their clothes tarnished by yellow toxic dust from the uranium. The uranium dust stayed in their homes. This installation represents the ways that uranium contamination has affected the lives of women and the earth. The garment is inspired by customary Navajo clothing.

Jane Benale has experienced the personal trauma of uranium toxicity in her family and on her land. In consultation with Benale’s son, Navajo writer Malcolm Benally, Ann Collier dyed wool in colors that represented important elements in Navajo life. Wool was chosen as a medium because of the significance of sheep in Navajo daily life and ceremonies.

Benale then created a weaving - a prayer for the stories to be told, as the very fabric of her life changed because of uranium toxicity. Inspired by Benale’s weaving, Kim Hahn created a design, which she printed on silk organza fabric. Collier then used the silk organza printed images to create nuno felt yardage which harmonized with Benale’s rug. Hahn used this felt fabric to design a skirt and cape, inspired by both contemporary and traditional Navajo garment style and infused with all the design elements. Then Collier and Hahn designed a striped textile pattern printed on 100% cotton chambray, hand cut the fabric into ½” width strips and hand wove them together based on a Navajo weaving pattern.

They also developed an organza shroud, using green-yellow irradiated color to illustrate the uranium pollution spilling onto the body. Collier’s felt necklace is inspired by Navajo squash blossom turquoise necklaces.