Lithium Mining is Green Colonialism -- Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Appeal to UN Forum on Indigenous Issues

 

 Duck Valley Paiute-Shoshone Council Member Addie Parker/Image by Censored News

Lithium Mining is Green Colonialism -- Duck Valley Paiute-Shoshone Appeal to UN Forum on Indigenous Issues

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
April 19, 2023

French translation by Christine Prat

https://chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=7941

NEW YORK -- Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Council Member Addie Parker appealed to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, describing the disastrous lithium mining and hydrocarbon plume her people suffer from in northern Nevada. Parker said there has been extensive mining here for over 150 years.

The "new green gold rush" for lithium batteries has brought devastating lithium mining and "green colonialism." Currently, there are 70 lithium mining applications in Nevada alone. The so-called "green" solution actually creates an environmental nightmare, including the disposal of batteries.

Indigenous Peoples at United Nations: Voices from the Earth for a Fractured World

San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler speaking at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York today/Image by Censored News

Article and images by Brenda Norrell
Censored News

NEW YORK -- Indigenous Peoples from around the world spoke out on climate change, devastating development, murders of Indigenous Peoples, and the impact of false climate solutions like carbon credits, at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today.

San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler said Sacred Oak Flat is a place for the ceremonies of Apache. Resolution Copper's planned copper mine would result in an enormous crater, leaving an environmental disaster.

"Oak Flat is a holy site," Chairman Rambler told the UN Forum. "It is an area filled with power." 

“Oak Flat is a holy site, an area of irreplaceable beauty akin to a church, no different than the Wailing Wall, Temple Mount, Australia’s Juukan Gorge, or Mecca’s Kaaba,” Chairman Rambler said. “Apache people have lived, prayed, and died at Oak Flat from time immemorial.”

Chairman Rambler said the United States is failing to comply with international standards and Treaties. (At this point he was cut off for time.)

 

The Sami youth delegate said 'green energy' is just more 'green colonialism' at the expense of Sami. The green transition is being used to promote industrialism. Sami's response to those who say, "Everyone has to sacrifice something," is this: 'Colonizers have already taken everything we have, there is nothing left to sacrifice.' She received a roar of applause at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.

What the Interior Secretary Failed to Tell the United Nations Forum of Indigenous Peoples

Video of lithium mine underway on the Paiute Massacre Site at Thacker Pass in Nevada.
 Video by Young Warrior 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0ChO5tXyzQ

While the United States desecrates the land, water and sacred places -- around the world, Indigenous land defenders are being assassinated. In New York, rhetoric dominates the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Watch UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, Tuesday:

https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1e/k1em34yuev

NEW YORK -- Here's what Interior Sec. Deb Haaland did not mention during her address to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York on Monday.

While promoting President Biden and glorifying his actions, portraying Biden as honoring Native people and their lands, Haaland did not mention the Willow Project in Alaska -- an oil drilling carbon bomb now threatening the lives of polar bears and caribou -- or the lithium mining now gouging out the earth of the Paiute Massacre site on Thacker Pass in Nevada, a lethal threat to all created things.

This desecration by a Canadian company, Lithium Americas, is enriching the company. Biden is promoting it as 'green energy,' for batteries for electric vehicles. 

During the rhetoric at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, only a few delegates described the widespread assassinations of Indigenous land and water defenders around the world.

While praising the government of Mexico, the delegate from Mexico failed to point out the horrific assassinations and disappearances widespread in Mexico right now. Although he praised Mexico for the creation of a university language program for  Yaqui in Sonora, he failed to dignify the deaths of Vicam and Bacum Yaqui who were assassinated, and Bacum Yaqui who remain disappeared, in Sonora and Sinaloa, south of the Arizona border.

The delegate from Peru was one of the few delivering a passionate plea for Indigenous Peoples who are fighting for their lives. Speaking out for the rights of women and children, the Peruvian delegate described the racist and colonial violence in Peru.

Quechan delegate from Peru at UN Forum

"We are being killed as Quechua Indigenous Peoples." Quechua and Aymara are being murdered. There is widespread racism, and impunity for the murders of Indigenous Peoples, right now in Peru.

"The representative of the National Organization of Indigenous Andean and Amazonian Women said that in Peru, racism and classism by members of civil service, Congress, and the media have become more visible through racist speech," U.N. media reports.

"The Peruvian State does not care about the lives of our brothers," she underscored, noting the impunity, as well as the use of judicial power to prosecute and criminalize Indigenous Peoples.

“Indigenous women are protecting the lives of people and Mother Earth, and for defending those rights, we are prosecuted and killed,” she emphasized, voicing hope that recommendations are issued to States so that they comply with international conventions and treaties to which they are signatories. Further, States must be called upon to respect the rights of Indigenous women and girls who will continue to ensure the survival of their cultures.

Meanwhile, the representative of the government of Mexico spoke only of the positive, failing to describe the widespread assassinations and disappearances of Indigenous Peoples, targeted assassinations of media, displacement of Indigenous Peoples for development, and theft of Indigenous Peoples resources, throughout Mexico.

 

Watch the video by Young Warrior of the desecration and destruction of the Paiute Massacre Site at Thacker Pass in northern Nevada, near the Oregon border, now underway. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0ChO5tXyzQ

Nevada Prosecutor Releases Amended Charge for Driver Killing Myron Dewey -- Has No Record of Plea Agreement

Myron Dewey photo by Matika Wilbur Project 562

Nevada District Attorney Releases Amended Charge for Driver Killing Myron Dewey -- Has No Record of Plea Agreement

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

April 17, 2023

Breaking News

PAHRUMP, Nevada -- The Nye County District Attorney's Office released today the amended charge for John Walsh, the driver who pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter in the death of Paiute journalist Myron Dewey.

Responding to a request from Censored News, the Nye County prosecutor's office provided the amended charge but said it has no record of Walsh's plea agreement. Walsh's plea of guilty to vehicular manslaughter was made by his attorney in court last Tuesday.

Navajo Sexual Abuse Awareness Walk

Dine' advocates and Navajo Nation Council delegates are speaking out for Dine' survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence, and in defense of missing and murdered Indigenous Peoples. Dine' are also speaking out in defense of water rights.

Inside the Files: TigerSwan's Target -- Standing Rock

Photo by Rob Wilson

Inside the Files: TigerSwan's Target -- Standing Rock

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

April 15, 2023

Updated April 17, 2023

With the release of 50,000 TigerSwan spy documents, the Intercept published its first article this week, revealing the details of how the mercenaries spied on Water Protectors at Standing Rock.

National Sheriffs' Association helped target LaDonna Brave Bull Allard

The TigerSwan spy files reveal that the mercenaries targeted individuals like LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, now in the Spirit World, who provided her home as the base of the Sacred Stone Camp when the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline began in 2016.