Navajo water contamination more horrific than Flint's

Navajo water has long been contaminated by Peabody Coal mining on Black Mesa, uranium spills and recently the EPA's poisoning of the Animas and San Juan Rivers. The US government knew when it relocated Navajos to the Sanders, Arizona, area that radiation from the Church Rock, NM, uranium spill would poison the water by way of the Rio Puerco wash. In the Four Corners region, three coal fired power plants poison the water in runoffs. -- Censored News

By Robert Seal
Censored News
Photo Louise Benally speaking in DC
French translation by Christine Prat
http://www.chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=3167

My name is Robert Seals. I have been following the Flint, Michigan water crisis story and wish to shine a light on another water contamination story that is much older and just as horrific as Flint's.

The Navajo Black Mesa water supply has, for decades, been destroyed by Peabody Mining Company. The wells have been drained to make slurry in order to pipeline coal and the remaining water supply is contaminated with uranium which is now leaching into the Colorado river. This is the short version of the little known story that desperately needs to be told. There has been no potable water on the reservation for decades. When a city like Flint is in crisis, everyone gets agitated/involved. However, there is no one talking about the tragic situation that has been taking place on the Navajo Black Mesa and no one is being held accountable for this travesty. The spokesperson for Black Mesa is Louise Benally. She will give you the complete story. (louisebenally6@gmail.com)

Here is a brief statement from Louise: "Our water has been impacted since the 1950's on to today. When different minerals were discovered on the Navajo Reservation in the 1940s-1950- through to this day (now 2016), ground water has been used to extract uranium. The ground and surface waters have been used and released back into holding ponds and/or released into the surface waters. Coal Mining on Black Mesa used water to transport coal for 276 miles and continued pumping ground water for pushing Black Mesa Coal to Laughlin, Nevada. Today there are holding ponds that are not monitored at Black Mesa which seep into the run offs/into the surface waterways- headwaters.

There is a lot of contamination on our reservation, in most of the regions- New Lands- Sanders, Arizona. There is no water that is safe for people to drink. In the western agency area, there has been no safe drinking water since the 1950's, after the uranium companies have moved on. Black Mesa water is being pumped for Peabody Coal Company's mining operation. The contamination is currently seeping into the Colorado River"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mesa_Peabody_Coal_controversy

Thank you immensely for taking the time to further investigate and expose this dire situation.

Sincerely, Robert Seals

Mother Nature's Temple
www.mothernaturestemple.org

mothernaturestemple www.mothernaturestemple.org Mother Natures Temple is an earth-based faith, reconnecting people with Nature & the Divinity of Nature.

BKIN/Bringing Kids Into Nature
www.bkin.org
honorthetreaty@hotmail.com
(408) 353-4638

Operation Chaos targeted American Indian Movement

Operation Chaos targeted American Indian Movement

Attorney William Kunstler with Russell Means
Photo by Maddy Miller

Operation Chaos targeted American Indian Movement

Russell Means said Indian Nations are "living in the belly of the monster, and the monster is the United States."

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

In 1967 President Johnson created Operation Chaos to spy on the American Indian Movement, Black Panthers, student movements and anti-war movements.

The CIA operation gathered documents on 7,200 US citizens, tracking their contacts with so-called 'dissidents' in other countries.
Although a great deal has been exposed about COINTELPRO, very little has been written about Operation Chaos.

There is only one mention of Operation Chaos spying on the American Indian Movement in Wikileaks, and the document is not available online. 

However, other documents on the Internet reveal the purpose of Operation Chaos, a highly classified, secret intelligence project of the CIA. 
Agents targeted US activists interaction with people in other countries, stating they were suspicious that the unrest at home was coming from abroad. However, in the end, agents discovered there was plenty of unrest originating within the US, including the movement against the Vietnam War.
The agents were segregated from other CIA agents and the first targets were the Peace Movements and African American movements. Then, the American Indian Movement and occupiers of Wounded Knee were targeted. 
The report below reveals how the CIA exceeded its authority with domestic spying of Operation Chaos in the 60s and 70s.

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/rockcomm/pdf/RockComm_Chap11_CHAOS.pdf

.

Operation Chaos document with history: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/rockcomm/pdf/RockComm_Chap11_CHAOS.pdf


AIM focus of US government spying prior to Wounded Knee

American Indians involved in the anti-war movement were targeted by spying during the 1960s and 1970s. The US carried out domestic operations, as revealed when the US targeted Buffy Sainte Marie. There were also foreign operations, which focused on AIM and travel to Europe.

During an interview at Dine' College, Buffy Sainte Marie said President Johnson put her out of the music business because of her stance against the Vietnam war and song, 'Universal Soldier. 'http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/id99.html

The US cables reveal that the State Department was focused on spying on Russell Means.
The US State Department took notice and sent out a cable when Russell Means, Lakota, said a delegation to Eastern Europe planned to "ram the human rights issue down President Carter's throat." https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1977STATE226024_c.html
Means promised to expose the genocide of American Indians in Europe and seek support for the ongoing "foreign occupation" in the US. The US was also concerned that the delegation to Europe in 1977 would use "Iroquois passports," according to the US spy cable.
One document in Wikileaks shows that after Wounded Knee, the American Indian Movement was planning an Indian Treaty Convention near Mobridge, South Dakota, in 1974. The US was concerned that Bolivia and Mexico would attend. "The USG (United States government) would regard official participation in this event by any foreign government as inappropriate." The US continued to try and find out who was coming. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974STATE101850_b.html

The US State Department was monitoring Russell Means, as shown below.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1977STATE237305_c.html

The American Indian Movement's relationship with Libya also created alarm and accusations in the US State Department, as revealed in the cables.
Earlier, in 1973, the Six Nations Iroquois Confederation engaged the UN and responded to the request from Wounded Knee to serve as peace mediators during the Wounded Knee occupation. 
These words ring true today as the mainstream media presents a biased version of the real story in Palestine.

In January of 1974, the US State Department became alarmed when Soviet journalists were planning to travel to Minneapolis. The US tracked them to see if they were there to cover the trial of those who occupied Wounded Knee. Once again, the US feared the American Indian Movement's ability to gain global support and contacts. The US also tracked unfavorable news coverage on Indian and human rights issues published in other countries. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974STATE012511_b.html

                                                                               

One Wikileaks document is from Geneva in 1977, the statement on Discrimination and Indigenous Rights, which also refers to the sterilization of women without consent. The cables also show that the US tracked comments of Russell Means regarding the sterilization of Indian women in the US without their consent.

Read more about US spying on American Indians and First Nations at: http://indigenousresistancejuly2014.blogspot.com/2014/08/texas-spies-ponder-mohawks-stratfor.html

For permission to repost this article contact brendanorrell@gmail.com

Copyright Brenda Norrell

DiCaprio: What about donating to grassroots Native activists

Photo by Brenda Norrell

'Big Green' non-profit heads are making half a million annually, while many Native grassroots activists work without pay -- why not donate

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Heh DiCaprio,

It is great to see the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation donating to so many good causes -- but the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council already makes $422,000 a year. Why not donate to some of the grassroots Native Americans who live on their homeland and fight the good fight everyday. They won't mind if you don't donate a million -- even $5,000 goes a long way with grassroots struggles. 

Just scroll back through Censored News over the past 10 years and you'll find plenty of Native Americans working without a salary. Below, I've listed a few regular contributors to Censored News. These are Native Americans who are unpaid or receive only small donations.

As for the 'Big Greens' on your donation list, these CEO salaries are hard to believe.

The CEO for Wildlife Conservation Society already receives $798,442 each year. The World Wildlife Fund CEO makes $637,686 each year. Meanwhile, over at Conservation International, the CEO is receiving $518,553 annually, according to Charity Navigator.

As for donating to National Geographic, Rupert Murdoch, upset over 'greenies' and the Paris climate summit, recently bought controlling interest in the National Geographic.

So, please consider donating to grassroots Native Americans:

Mohawk Nation News is among the most frequent contributors to Censored News.
www.mohawknationnews.com

Owe Aku International Justice Project: Lakotas fighting the good fight against tarsands and uranium mining
http://www.oweakuinternational.org/

Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, human rights at the border, exposing abuse by the US Border Patrol and militarization of the border.
http://www.solidarity-project.org/

Dine' on Big Mountain include Louise Benally. Louise and family have been resisting relocation for 40 years. An article of Louise's comments, censored by Indian Country Today, was among those leading to the creation of Censored News. Louise compared the war in Iraq with the Longest Walk of Dine' to the prison camp of Fort Sumner, N.M.

Bahe Katenaay of Big Mountain was also censored by Indian Country. Bahe revealed how oil and gas drilling is destroying Dinetah, the Dine' place of Origin. Bahe currently publishes Sheep Dog Nation Rocks.
http://sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com

San Carlos Apache fighting Arizona Sen John McCain's land giveaway of sacred Oak Flat for copper mining http://www.apache-stronghold.com/

Outta Your Backpack Media: Indigenous news and video production. Special thanks to Klee Benally and the Native youths, based in Flagstaff, Arizona.
http://oybm.org/donate/


American Indian Genocide Museum, President Steve Melendez, Pyramid Lake Paiute http://www.aigenom.org

Joye Braun, Cheyenne River Lakota halting megaloads in her wheelchair.

Colville tribal member Yvonne Swan said, "I agree. It's not that difficult to hire a grassroots team to do the research. I've been involved in several grassroots efforts and we couldn't get any funding in the US because we could not hire a lawyer to get non-profit status. At the time, the action was more important than paperwork. I didn't appreciate the advice that created more work, we had enough to do. I got a $10,000 grant from a group of caring people in England to go against the Canadian government who disturbed our ancestral burial ground. I worked on that repatriation and land issue for five years and that's the only grant I got. But we secured the burial ground despite Canada and other adversaries. We could still use money to pay legal help, but, who cares?" (Contact Yvonne at Yvonne L. Swan, PO Box 49, Inchelium, WA 99138.)


To end on a high note, DiCaprio is donating to Digital Democracy, which has been training Indigenous in the Amazon to use technology in monitoring areas of oil and gas drilling.

Dicaprio Foundation donations for 2016: 
Amazon Watch – Biomimicry Institute – Bioneers – California Wolf Center: Pacific Wolf Coalition – ClearWater – Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund – Conservation International – Dark Snow – Digital Democracy – Earth Echo International – Empowered by Light – International Fund for Animal Welfare – National Geographic: Pristine Seas – Natural Resources Defense Council – Oceans 5 – Save The Elephants – Saving Species – Tetiaroa Society – The Conservation Land Trust – The Solutions Project – Tony Fitzjohn/George Adamson African Wildlife Preservation Trust – Tree People – Virunga Fund – WaterKeeper – Wildlife Conservation Network – Wildlife Conservation Society – World Wildlife Fund



For contact info to donate to individuals or organizations, please send an e-mail to: brendanorrell@gmail.com

Women's Boat to Gaza

WOMEN'S BOAT TO GAZA Gaza has been under Israeli blockade for the past decade during which Israel has also launched countless attacks against the besieged population, turning life into a nightmare and a continuous struggle. Through Freedom Flotillas and other naval missions we have brought international attention to their suffering and their resistance. The Women's Boat to Gaza (WBG) seeks not only to challenge the Israeli blockade but to also show solidarity and bring a message of hope to the Palestinian people. With the support of women, men, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups, and from women's collectives and events, we will make this happen. We will purchase a boat, have an all woman crew and women passengers from around the world. We intend to sail in summer or fall of 2016--the date depending on fundraising to purchase the boat. FFC is composed of civil society organizations and initiatives from many countries. We have been challenging the illegal and inhuman Israeli blockade of Gaza for years and are committed to continue the struggle until the blockade is unconditionally lifted and the Palestinian people everywhere regain their full rights. WBG LOGO COMPETITION We need your help and involvement in designing a logo for the Women's Boat to Gaza. CRITERIA FOR THE LOGO: - A logo that is scalable, clear and appealing whether it is reduced to a thumbnail or painted on the hull of a boat. - A logo that could be used in color or in grayscale/B&W - A logo that coveys: Empowering - Palestine - Gaza - Women Open to ALL designers DEADLINE for submissions is January 25, 2016. The adopted design will be announced within the couple of weeks that follow. Please send your designs to mediawbg@gmail.com with WBG logo in the subject line. If you have any questions in the meantime you can direct them to the same address. In solidarity! DONATE TO THE WOMEN'S BOAT TO GAZA  PLEASE Donate to Women's Boat to Gaza through the US campaign fiscal sponsor Nonviolence International.  Hit the Donate button and, on the second screen, click Add special instructions to the seller, to designate "Women's Boat to Gaza" .  . http://nonviolenceinternational.net/

US to Gaza | Women's Boat to Gaza | c/o Nonviolence International | 4000 Albemarle Street, NW Suite 401 | Washington | DC | 20016

Mohawk Nation News RED-X GHOST SHIPS

http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2016/01/19/red-x-ghost-ships/

Apache March to Freedom: Oak Flat Feb. 26 -- 27, 2016

Apache One Year Memorial March to Freedom to Oak Flat will be
Feb. 26 -- 27, 2016

Journalists: The Gift of Being Present

For journalists, the gift of being present is the greatest gift

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Photo: On the road to Zapatista Stronghold by Brenda Norrell

It is often the simplest memory, the simplest truth, that is the most profound: Riding in the back of a cargo truck through Zapatista country in Chiapas, wearing our red bandanas; driving into Pine Ridge from the south, with the sky as a painter's palette; and hiking outside my log cabin in the Navajo Chuskas, watching for wild turkey, black bear and acorns.

It is often the simplest truth in a news story that returns to our minds in the years that follow: Hopi and Japanese revealing how water has intelligence and changes its appearance in response to positive words, or Navajo elder Howard McKinley remembering eating wild baked yucca bananas in Tse Ho Tso and how the ice from Blue Canyon was cut, hauled by wagon, and stored in the rock houses of finely chiseled stone.

This is why it matters to be present as journalists. The new cyber journalism, with editors telling journalists that it is OK to stay home and plagiarize the web, or rewrite others hard work and add a phone call interview to disguise it, are committing a crime of journalism. Besides being paid for others work, and publishing articles with content errors, these editors are denying journalists a precious gift.

It is the gift of being present. It is the gift of great and beautiful memories. It is the gift of sharing some vital truth when you see the speakers eyes, smell the blue corn cooking for lunch, taste the tamales steamed in banana leaves, and see the resilience within the young mother grinding corn.

It is the gift of riding horseback on Arapaho's Wind River, and on the back of a Harley in Green Bay. It is the gift of crossing the border one more time, going beyond the saguaros at sunset and seeing just one more time, where the desert meets the sea. It is the gift of smelling the damp red earth after a great rain and hearing words spoken which may never be spoken again.

It is the gift of swimming in rivers.

---

Brenda Norrell has been a reporter in Indian country for 34 years, beginning as a staff reporter for Navajo Times and stringer for AP and USA Today. After serving as a longtime staff reporter for Indian Country Today, she was censored and terminated. As a result, she created Censored News, now in its 10th year with no ads or grants. She is blacklisted by all the paying media.

For permission to republish this article: brendanorrell@gmail.com

Please share our links.

Photos by Brenda Norrell: Photo 1: Mike Flores, Tohono O'odham and Mark Maracle, Mohawk, Indigenous Border Summit, San Xavier, Tohono O'odham land in Arizona. Photo 2: Bolivia, in mountains and home community of President Evo Morales as Morales played soccer, during Mother Earth Conference 2010. Photo 3: Dine' (Navajo) relocation resister Roberta Blackgoat protesting Peabody Coal mining and aquifer theft on Black Mesa, during Flagstaff, Arizona, protest. Photo 4: Jean Whitehorse, Dine', exposing the sterilization of American Indian women during AIM West Conference in San Francisco. Photo 5: Comcaac (Seri) in Sonora, Mexico.

Photos below from Sonora, Mexico by Brenda Norrell

The Juarez Workers' Fight Crosses the Border in 2016

January 17, 2016

Special Report

The Juarez Workers' Fight Crosses the Border in 2016

By Frontera NorteSur
Posted with permission at Censored News
Dutch translation by Alice Holemans, NAIS
http://www.denaisgazet.be/nieuws/de-strijd-van-de-juarez-arbeiders-gaat-in-2016-over-de-grens
French translation by Christine Prat
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/01/decaprio-what-about-donating-to.html?spref=fb&m=1

Beginning in the summer and fall of 2015, a wave of worker protests over low wages, sexual harassment and other adverse working conditions broke out in four foreign-owned factories, or maquiladoras, in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez.  In a city where genuine union representation in the export plants is practically unknown, the workers' demands for independent unions stood out.

As the days turned into weeks and months, speculation buzzed in the Juarez press whether the companies, which labor activists accuse of firing workers involved in protests and union organizing, would simply wait out the movement until hunger and cold set in.

In early 2016 not only have the protests defied the winter weather and persisted against at least three of the companies-Lexmark, Eaton and Foxconn's Scientific Atlanta division - but actions in support of former and current workers are growing both nationally and internationally.

Last week, in solidarity with Lexmark workers, demonstrations were staged in Mexico City, El Paso and Lexington, Kentucky, according to the Paso del Norte Regional Popular Assembly, a grouping of human rights and pro-labor organizations and individuals in Juarez, El Paso and Chihuahua.

"There is a lot of sexual harassment in the industry. The most common one is that the assembly line chiefs and supervisors demand sexual favors for such basic things as overtime hours," a Lexmark worker told a reporter in Mexico City. "The base salary never makes ends meet, and (supervisors) condition overtime to what the women workers agree to give them."