Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

December 16, 2022

Paiute and Shoshone Elders Evicted from their Homes in Winnemucca Indian Colony, Nevada


Photo courtesy Neweneen Sokopa Camp

Police blocking entrance to Paiute
and Shoshone to return home at Winnemucca
Indian Colony.

Paiute and Shoshone were evicted from their homes in winter by a disputed tribal council and banished, many with no place to go. Kyle Missouri was tasered, arrested, and now jailed while attempting to return home.

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Updated Dec. 17, 2022
Translated to French by Christine Prat

WINNEMUCCA INDIAN COLONY, Nevada -- In a cruel action during winter, the Winnemucca Tribal Court evicted Paiute and Shoshone elders without a trial, and banished people from their homes with no place to go in northern Nevada. Elders' homes and possessions have been burned and demolished, and utility lines cut, attorneys said.

"They are living in motels right before Christmas, and it is heartbreaking," said Kyle Missourii, who was arrested and tasered as he returned to his home, where he grew up, which is owned by his 88-year-old grandmother. Kyle is now in jail.

The Winnemucca Tribal Court ruled for the disputed Tribal Council without giving elders and residents the benefit of a trial. The tribal court ordered most elders and residents out of the homes they have lived in for decades by Friday, December 9, attorneys said.

Paiute Elder Resident JJ Ayer said, “I am of seven generations of Native people that have lived on the Winnemucca Indian Colony. This is wrong in every way, most of us are disabled and old with no other home but here and now we are banished from our land.”

Paiute and Shoshone elders said the tribal council, led by a chairwoman who does not live here, and provides inconsistent claims of being Native American, have brought in a demolition business from Kingman, Arizona, to destory their homes.

December 14, 2022

Navajo Government Joining Australian Company to Devastate Hualapai Sacred Land for Lithium Mine


Hualapai Walk for the Sacred Opposing Lithium Mine

Navajo Government Joining Australian Company to Devastate Hualapai Sacred Land for Lithium Mine


By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
December 10, 2022

The Navajo Nation's "energy transition office" plans to operate the lithium mine that will devastate Hualapai's sacred spring used for healing since time immemorial. In a deal with the Australian company, Vern Lund, the CEO of the Navajo office in Farmington, N.M., would join the lithium company's board.

The lithium mine will deplete and poison the water on Hualapai sacred ancestral land in northwest Arizona. Hualapai elders point out their sacred plants and the animals will be poisoned.

"It will destroy what is important to our people," said Ivan Bender, Hualapai caretaker at the sacred spring Ha'Kamwe. "Every living thing needs clean water."

Already, Navajo Transitional Energy Company has invested Dine' money in a Texas company mining rare metals, and operates the Navajo Mine, three coal mines in Wyoming and Montana. It owns a percentage of the coal-fired Four Corners Power Plant on the Navajo Nation, among the worst polluters in the world.

Arizona Lithium, a subsidiary of Hawkstone Mining in Australia, said that the Navajo Transitional Energy Company will take over the operational development of Big Sandy, managing everything from permitting requirements to a definitive feasibility study and mine construction, under the terms of the deal.

Hualapai said carving an open pit mine into the earth would devastate the aquifer that feeds Ha’Kamwe, a sacred spring that the Hualapai people have used medicinally since time immemorial.

WASHINGTON: Greater Chaco Protectors Rally Congress for Environmental Justice



Greater Chaco Advocates Travel from New Mexico to call on Congress for environmental justice for Greater Chaco

D.C. Premiere of Our Story: The Indigenous-Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco

Delegation Statement
Censored News
Translated into French for Censored News
by Christine Prat

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A delegation of Indigenous community leaders and Greater Chaco protectors traveled from New Mexico to Washington D.C. to lobby members of Congress for Greater Chaco protections, and premiere a film screening of the award-winning Our Story: The Indigenous Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco (film trailer) which showcases the threats the Greater Chaco Landscape and its communities face from continued oil and gas leasing and drilling.

December 13, 2022

Greenwashing -- Biden, Haaland and the Navajo Nation's Runaway Train: Oil, Gas, Coal and Lithium

 

Ha ‘Kamwe is a hot spring sacred to the Hualapai Tribe in Northern Arizona. An Australian company is threatening the spring with a proposed lithium mining project.


The Green Hoax -- Biden, Haaland and the Navajo Government's Runaway Train: Oil, Gas, Coal and Lithium

Brenda Norrell

Censored News 

While President Biden and Interior Sec. Deb Haaland push for more oil and gas wells and fracking in the Greater Chaco region -- the Navajo Government's "Navajo Transitional Energy Company" is pushing coal mines, and now plans to join an Australian company to devastate the sacred land of the Hualapai with lithium mining. 

Lithium, in demand for electric vehicle batteries, is part of the fake green solutions to climate change.

Flying under the banner of energy transition, the Biden administration and Navajo Nation are pushing the most polluting and devastating drilling and mining on earth.

The Climate Trace map revealed at the U.N. Climate Summit in Egypt shows the San Juan, N.M., oil and gas fields, and Navajo power plants and coal mines, are among those polluting the world's air, emitting greenhouse gases causing global warming, and poisoning the air and causing respiratory illnesses.

The Navajo government's energy transition team is operating four coal mines and a power plant, and invested in a Texas company mining rare earth minerals.