Members of the Apache tribe stood chanting in a circle with drums and posters in the center of New York’s Times Square on Friday, to protest against a bill that will hand over land they hold sacred to a foreign mining corporation.
Times Square was the latest stop for activists from the Apache tribe who are travelling across the United States to battle for Oak Flat and to draw attention to a bill introduced by Arizona representative Raúl M Grijalva to repeal the decision to hand the land over to Resolution Copper.
A fine-print rider was added to December’s National Defense Authorization Act that gave the title of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper Mining, co-owned by multinational mining conglomerates Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.
The company claims they will create 3,700 jobs over the next few decades and while some dispute that number, the Apache tribe has other concerns.
Wendsler Nosie, the councilman leading Apache Stronghold, said Oak Flat is “a central part of our religion, our ceremonies, our upbringing for our children”. To those who observe the Bible, it is the equivalent, he said, of Mount Sinai, the mountain where God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses.
“It’s like Mount Sinai. Tell the people who believe the Bible that,” Nosie said. “What would they say? It’s no different. Why do we treat it different?”
Oak Flat is possibly the first sacred Native American land to be given to a foreign corporation in US history, said Aften Meltzer, media consultant for Avaaz, an online democracy network.
The Apache Stronghold is trying to garner as much public support as possible during their travels. Their petition on Avaaz.org made out to members of the US Congress and the interior secretary, Sally Jewell, already has about 78,000 signatures.
“If you educate the people and tell them what happened here in Washington and every American takes part and notifies their congressional leader that this was wrong and they ask the congressional leader to support a repeal then there is a chance that this can be repealed,” Nosie said. “I know it’s a long shot but this is wrong.”
He has become increasingly optimistic that the Save Oak Flat Act will pass as their group has travelled since 5 July from Sacred Mt Graham, Arizona, to Washington DC. Their stops include meetings with indigenous advocates across the midwest, a Baptist church in North Carolina and a Neil Young concert in Denver. They will arrive in Washington on Tuesday and “talk to congressional leaders and agencies that are there”, said Nosie.
But despite the success, he says he has found the trip to be very emotional thus far.
“Just seeing all these kids and mothers that are pregnant that came up to the ceremonies to meet us and knowing that their children are going to be born and they will have no rights and religious rights on their reservation … to see that was really detrimental to me,” he said. “All I could do was cry when listening to my relatives, my native people.”
He added: “But the other side of the token was there are so many Americans, non-native people, who have come out and asked many questions. The numbers we’ve been meeting since travelling has just grown and grown and grown.”
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From Times Square to the Capitol, Apache Protestors Fight U.S. Land Swap with Mining Company
Here’s a Dot Earth postcard from Kieran Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Conservation Biology, who has been traveling with a group of protestors from the San Carlos Apache tribe in southeastern Arizona. The protestors, from a group called Apache Stronghold, oppose a land swap between the federal government and a subsidiary of the giant Rio Tinto mining company that they say threatens Oak Flat, a part of Tonto National Forest that they consider sacred. A recent Op-Ed article by Lydia Millet*, “Selling Off Apache Holy Land,” conveys their argument, which centers on dicey politics:
The swap — which will trade 5,300 acres of private parcels owned by the company to the Forest Service and give 2,400 acres including Oak Flat to Resolution so that it can mine the land without oversight — had been attempted multiple times by Arizona members of Congress on behalf of the company…. This time, the giveaway language was slipped onto the defense bill by Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona at the 11th hour. The tactic was successful only because, like most last-minute riders, it bypassed public scrutiny.
(Here’s the argument of Resolution Copper Mining, the Rio Tinto subsidiary.)
Heres Suckling’s missive, filed from Times Square earlier today:
Times Square. I’m in a flash mob organized by Apache Stronghold, a group of San Carlos Apaches trying to save Oak Flat, a sacred religious site in Arizona stolen from them by a disgraceful John McCain rider on the Department of Defense budget bill last year. Between “repent now!” signs, nearly nude showgirls and nonchalant cops, 50 Apaches are drumming, singing, dancing, and working the crowd. Even in Times Square this is a thing.
I’ve been on and off the road with them for a couple of weeks, mostly with a small group on tour with Neil Young, opening up his Rebel Content/Monsanto Years concerts [Facebook video].
The larger group is traveling from reservation to reservation drumming up anger and support to stop the desecration of Oak Flat. Wendsler Nosie, Sr., an elder and former tribal chairman, flies in and out, meeting with Baptist leaders and congressmen. Next Tuesday a traditional spiritual run will cut through Rock Creek to Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. Wednesday, there’ll be a big rally on the West Lawn. Having fired up Indian Country, the Apache Stronghold should turn out 500 Native Americans from more than 100 tribes and at least that many non-white supporters. Today it’s on to the United Nations.
The chaotic, seat-of-the-pants, insanely energizing caravan is a snapshot of the hyper-integrated, relentlessly hybrid, never-quite-modern NOW we all live in one way or another.
Native Americans from one the poorest reservations in the country are using cell phones, Twitter and Facebook to throw a flash mob in Times Square to save a sacred site in Arizona stolen by a multi-national mining company in Australia. It’s their land, but it’s public land, and John McCain is bent on privatizing it.
Cell phones abound, but there’s no credit card and money is very, very tight. The large group is out of range much of the time, performing ceremonies and sharing stories with other tribes. But you can follow their progress on Facebook.
The convoy is a run from tribe to tribe. They have been given hand-carved, carefully painted wooden arrows by the tribes they met to bring to Washington, D.C. Except one that is purple and metal because that’s all that a man could offer from the life and history America dealt to his tribe. It, too, is placed in the quiver.
The defenders of Oak Flat are traditionalists. Some leave the reservation rarely, but Standing Fox is a hip-hop artist and Rudy just traveled to London to shame Rio Tinto, which is partly British-owned. Last night in Camden, N.J., Neil Young asked 50 Apache drummers, singers and dancers to open his show.
I, who can barely muster the white man shuffle and don’t know what the sacred songs mean, find myself choreographing the performance in the parking lot an hour before show time because I’m the only one who knows what the stage looks like. It’s fraught with cables, amps, mikes, speakers and buttony things we’re told to never, ever step on.
Neil Young must be crazy. What international rock star risks his reputation to help desperate people he’s never met, and who, save Standing Fox, have no professional music experience? The man is heart and soul. As medicine man Anthony Logan, the eldest of the elders, sings a hunched over prayer with drums pounding, one of the teen Apache dancers takes selfies from the stage. This is how we live. This is how we fight. This is how we win.
*Suckling and Millet were formerly married.
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CENSORED NEWS
Friday, July 17, 2015
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/apache-stronghold-in-times-...
Photos by Michele Susan, thank you.
Apache Stronghold Convoy in Times Square today, Friday, July 17, 2015.
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