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Forest Service Threatens Legal Implications and Assault of Sacred Fire at Sacred/Holy Peaks Ceremony
Published
11 years agoon
By
admin
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, July 6, 2012
CONTACT:
Brett Ramey
Phone: (928) 310-8059
Email: brett@liverealnow.org
Forest Service Threatens Legal Implications and Assault of Sacred Fire at Sacred/Holy Peaks Ceremony
*Indigenous Elders and Medicine Peoples Council Statement attached.
Although a voluntary closure order for the Traditional Cultural Gathering was previously granted by Coconino Forest Supervisor M. Earl Stewart, Stewart apparently changed his position and issued the threat as the four day ceremony was initiated on July 4th, 2012.
When confronted by Forest Service officials, members of the Indigenous Elders and Medicine Peoples Council, the group hosting the Traditional Cultural Gathering, invited Forest Service officials to sit with elders to resolve the Forest Service’s concerns with the ceremonial fire. Coconino Forest Supervisor Stewart stated in a letter dated July 5, 2012, “non-compliance will result in citations for having a fire during restrictions and/or camping in a closure area without a special use permit.”
Indigenous Elders and Medicine Peoples Council had worked to inform the Coconino National Forest of this ceremony since December 2011 and again met with Coconino Tribal Relations on February 27 and June 21 of 2012 to answer questions and to make sure the Forest Service was fully aware of the Council’s activities.
On May 17, 2012, the Forest Service was notified that a sacred fire was central to the Traditional Cultural Gathering.
The Indigenous Elders and Medicine Peoples Council is calling for support to address this serious disruption and violation of the Traditional Cultural Gathering. Please call and email the following Forest Service officials and urge them not to assault and desecrate the sacred fire:
M. Earl Stewart Coconino Forest Supervisor
Phone: (928) 527-3600
Email: estewart@fs.fed.us
Corbin Newman Regional Forester
U.S. Forest Service, Southwest Region
333 Broadway SE Albuquerque, NM
87102
Email:¨cnewman02@fs.fed.us
Janie Hipp Senior Adviser for Tribal Affairs USDA
Email: janie.hipp@osec.usda.gov
Contact President Obama and urge him to fulfill his 2008 campaign promise to support “legal protections for sacred places and cultural traditions, including Native ancestors burial grounds and churches.”
President Obama:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Online Comments: http://www.whitehouse.gov/
###
Indigenous Elders and Medicine Peoples
Formal Statement
July 6, 2012
“The Creator gave the Aboriginal Indigenous Nations of the People Laws to follow and responsibilities to care for all Creation. These instructions have been passed down from generation to generation from the beginning of Creation. It is the Law that no one can overpower the Creator’s Law, you are a part of Creation, thus if you break the Law, you are destroying yourself.
We speak on behalf of all Creation: the four legged/those that swim/those that crawl/those that fly/those that burrow in the Earth/the plant and tree Nations. This one life system includes the elements of fire, water, earth and air, the living environment of “Mother Earth”.
The Sanctity of the Creator’s Law has been broken. The balance of life has been disrupted. You come into life as a sacred being. If you abuse the sacredness of your life then you affect all Creation. The future of all life is now in jeopardy.
We have now reached the crossroads. As Aboriginal Indigenous People we ask you to work with us to save the future of all Creation.”
The Holy/Sacred Ceremonial Fire unites us as Aboriginal Indigenous Nations of the People on our threatened Holy/Sacred Mountain (San Francisco Peaks) on July 4-7th 2012.
The holy/sacred ceremonial fire renews our connection to all Creation, it carries our prayers and represents all life. When it pertains to our ceremony or ceremonial fire it is imperative for the Forest Service to acknowledge that the Indigenous Peoples are the sole authority on our culture and way of life and any decisions that do not attain our free, prior and informed consent are not consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
A great urgency is in our midst with the wind, water and fire showing it’s power because of the imbalance from over management. As these fires burn, throughout the west and around the world, they are forever disrupting and destroying not only homes of the two-legged, but also many lives and homes of the animal, plant and tree Nations.
After much time spent on educating the Forest Service on the importance of our role as the Original Caretakers of this Land. We feel great sadness for the Forest Service as they have given the Indigenous Elders and Medicine Peoples Council no choice. The choice to violate our own cultural protocols or face legal implications is not consistent with creating a working relationship with Indigenous Peoples. The holy/sacred fire will continue. We refuse to participate in this atrocity; it is up to the Forest Service to determine whether they will disrupt these prayers. We will have no part in this act! Our prayers are to protect the sanctity of the threatened sacred/holy mountain including forgiving those that continue to desecrate life. We are spiritual people and we maintain peace through our ceremonies.
We are united under the Creator’s Law. We are from various Indigenous Nations and are spiritually related. We have been placed on our lands as Aboriginal Indigenous Nations of the People with sacred instructions and responsibilities placed within us by the Creator to follow the Laws of the Creator. Federal agencies use terms like federally recognized and federally unrecognized. We see this as your way of dividing the Indigenous Peoples. We are united under the Creator’s Law, as United Indigenous Nations, to protect and extend Life for all future generations.
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COUNCIL
Chief, Arvol Looking Horse
19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe
Spiritual Leader
Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Nations
Bobby C. Billie
Clan Leader and Spiritual Leader
Council of the Original Miccosukee
Simanolee Nation Aboriginal People
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#nonukes
Architect of Annihilation: Oppenheimer’s Deadly Legacy of Nuclear Terror
Published
2 months agoon
July 20, 2023By
admin
Read our quick and dirty review of the movie here.
Klee Benally, Indigenous Action/Haul No!
Contributions by Leona Morgan, Diné No Nukes/Haul No!
Printable posters (PDFs): 11″x17″ color, 11″x17″ black & white
The genocidal colonial terror of nuclear energy and weapons is not entertainment.
To glorify such deadly science and technology as a dramatic character study, is to spit in the face of hundreds of thousands of corpses and survivors scattered throughout the history of the so-called Atomic age.
Think of it this way, for every minute that passes during the film’s 3-hour run time, more than 1,100 citizens in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki died due to Oppenheimer’s weapon of mass destruction. This doesn’t account for those downwind of nuclear tests who were exposed to radioactive fallout (some are protesting screenings), it doesn’t account for those poisoned by uranium mines, it doesn’t account for those killed during nuclear power plant melt-downs, it doesn’t account for those in the Marshall Islands who are forever poisoned.
For every second you sit in the air conditioned theater with a warm buttery popcorn bucket in your lap, 18 people dead in the blink of an eye. Thanks to Oppenheimer.
Though you’ll certainly learn enough about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” thanks to director Christopher Nolan’s 70mm IMAX odyssey, let’s be clear about his deadly legacy and the overall military and scientific industrial complex behind it.
After the successful detonation of the very first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer infamously quoted the Hindu scripture Bhagavad-Gita, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Barely a month later, the “U.S” dropped two atomic bombs devastating the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and more than 200,000 people were killed. Some of the shadows of those perished were burned into the streets. One survivor, Sachiko Matsuo, relayed their thoughts as they tried to make sense of what was happening when Nagasaki was struck, “I could see nothing below. My grandmother started to cry, ‘Everybody is dead. This is the end of the world.” A devastation that Nolan intentionally leaves out because, according to the director, the film is not told from the perspectives of those who were bombed, but by those who were responsible for it. Nolan casually explains, “[Oppenheimer] learned about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the radio, the same as the rest of the world.”
Months after the atomic detonation at the “Trinity” site in occupied Tewa lands of New Mexico, Oppenheimer resigned. He walked away expressing the conflict of having, “blood on his hands,” (though reportedly he later said the bombings were not “on his conscience”) while leaving a legacy of nuclear devastation and radioactive pollution permanently poisoning lands, waters, and bodies to this day.
U.S. military and political machinery cannibalized the scientist and turned him into a villain of their imperialist cold-war anxiety. They reminded him and the other scientists behind the Manhattan Project, that they and their interests were always in control.
Oppenheimer never was a hero, he was an architect of annihilation.
The race to develop the first atomic bomb (after Nazis had split the atom) never could be a strategy of peaceful deterrence, it was a strategy of domination and annihilation.
Nazi Germany was committing genocide against Jewish people while the U.S. sat on the political sidelines. It wasn’t until they were directly threatened that the U.S. intervened. Though Nazi Germany was defeated on May 8th, 1945, the U.S. dropped two separate atomic bombs on the non-military targets of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945.
To underscore Oppenheimer’s complicity, he suppressed a petition by 70 Manhattan Project scientists urging President Truman not to drop the bombs on moral grounds. The scientists also argued that since the war was nearing its end, Japan should be given the opportunity to surrender.
Today there are approximately 12,500 nuclear warheads in nine countries with almost 90 percent of them held by the U.S. and Russia. It is estimated that 100 nuclear weapons is an “adequate… deterrence” threshold for the “mutually assured destruction” of the world.
Oppenheimer built the gun that is still held to the head of everyone who lives on this Earth today. Throughout the decades after the development of “The Bomb,” millions throughout the world have rallied for nuclear disarmament, yet politicians have never taken their fingers off the trigger.
The Deadly Legacy of Nuclear Colonialism
Nuclear weapons production and energy would not be possible without uranium.
Global uranium mining boomed during and after World War II and continues to threaten communities throughout the world.
Today, more than 15,000 abandoned uranium mines are located within the so-called U.S., mostly in and around Indigenous communities, permanently poisoning sacred lands and waters with little to no political action being taken to clean up their deadly toxic legacy.
Indigenous communities have long been at the front lines of the struggle to stop the deadly legacy of the nuclear industry. Nuclear colonialism has resulted in radioactive pollution that has poisoned drinking water systems of entire communities like Red Shirt Village in South Dakota and Sanders in Arizona. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has closed more than 22 wells on the Navajo Nation where there are more than 523 abandoned uranium mines. In Ludlow, South Dakota an abandoned uranium mine sits within feet of an elementary school, poisoning the ground where children continue to play to this day.
Nuclear colonialism has ravaged our communities and left a deadly legacy of cancers, birth defects, and other serious health consequences, it is the slow genocide of Indigenous Peoples.
From 1944 to 1986 some 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from mines on Diné lands. Diné workers were told little of the potential health risks with many not given any protective gear. As demand for uranium decreased the mines closed, leaving over a thousand contaminated sites. To this day none have been completely cleaned up.
On July 16, 1979, just 34 years after Oppenheimer oversaw the July 16, 1945 Trinity test, the single largest accidental release of radioactivity occurred on Diné Bikéyah (The Navajo Nation) at the Church Rock uranium mill. More than 1,100 tons of solid radioactive mill waste and 94 million gallons of radioactive tailings poured into the Puerco River when an earthen dam broke. Today, water in the downstream community of Sanders, Arizona is poisoned with radioactive contamination from the spill.
Although uranium mining is now banned on the reservation due to advocacy from Diné anti-nuclear organizers, Navajo politicians have sought to allow new mining in areas already contaminated by the industry’s toxic legacy. It is estimated that 25% of all the recoverable uranium remaining in the country is located on Diné Bikéyah.
Though there has never been a comprehensive human health study on the impacts of uranium mining in the area, a focused study has detected uranium in the urine of babies born to Diné women exposed to uranium.
Western Shoshone lands in so-called Nevada, which have never been ceded to the “U.S.” government, have long been under attack by the military and nuclear industries.
Between 1951 and 1992 more than 1,000 nuclear bombs have been detonated above and below the surface at an area called the Nevada Test Site on Western Shoshone lands which make it one of the most bombed nations on earth. Communities in areas around the test site faced severe exposure to radioactive fallout, which caused cancers, leukemia & other illnesses. Those who have suffered this radioactive pollution are collectively known as “Downwinders.”
Western Shoshone spiritual practitioner Corbin Harney, who passed on in 2007, helped initiate a grassroots effort to shutdown the test site and abolish nuclear weapons. He once said, “We’re not helping Mother Earth at all. The roots, the berries, the animals, are not here anymore, nothing’s here. It’s sad. We’re selling the air, the water, we’re already selling each other. Somewhere it’s going to come to an end.”
Between 1945 and 1958, sixty-seven atomic bombs were detonated in tests conducted in Ṃajeḷ (the Marshall Islands). Some Indigenous people of the islands have all together stopped reproducing due to the severity of cancer and birth defects they have faced due to radioactive pollution.
In 1987 the “U.S.” congress initiated a controversial project to transport and store almost all of the U.S.’s toxic waste at Yucca Mountain located about 100 miles northwest of so-called Las Vegas, Nevada. Yucca Mountain has been held holy to the Paiute and Western Shoshone Nations since time immemorial. In January 2010 the Obama administration approved a $54 billion dollar taxpayer loan in a guarantee program for new nuclear reactor construction, three times what Bush previously promised in 2005.
There are currently 93 operating nuclear reactors in the so-called U.S. that supply 20% of the country’s electricity. There are nearly 90,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear waste stored in concrete dams at nuclear power plants throughout the country with the waste increasing at a rate of 2,000 tons per year.
From the 1979 disasters of Three Mile Island and Churchrock to the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant melted down, the nuclear industry has been wrought with mass catastrophes with permanent global consequences.
In 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant catastrophically failed and began melting down after it was hit by an earthquake and tsunami. It’s been reported that the Fukushima plant has been leaking approximately 300 tons of radioactive water into the ocean every day. Today, the Japanese government is open about its plans to release remaining radioactive waters into the Pacific.
“Depleted Uranium” weapons deployed by the U.S. in imperialist wars (particularly Iraq and Afghanistan) have also poisoned eco-systems, including at proving grounds and firing ranges in Arizona, Maryland, Indiana and Vieques, Puerto Rico. Depleted uranium is a by-product of uranium enrichment process when it’s used for nuclear reactor fuel and in the making of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear energy production is now claimed as a “green solution” to the climate crisis, but nothing could be further from the truth of this deadly lie.
In April 2022, the Biden administration announced a $6 billion government bailout to “rescue” nuclear power plants at risk of closing. A colonial government representative stated, “U.S. nuclear power plants contribute more than half of our carbon-free electricity, and President Biden is committed to keeping these plants active to reach our clean energy goals.” They, along with Climate Justice activists cite nuclear energy as necessary to combat global warming, all while ignoring the devastating permanent impacts Indigenous Peoples have faced.
Due to this “greenwashing” of nuclear energy, we face a push for nuclear hydrogen, small modular nuclear reactors, and High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) driving a renewed threat of new uranium mining, transportation, & processing.
Though the Obama administration placed a moratorium on thousands of uranium mine leases around the Grand Canyon in 2012, pre-existing uranium claims were allowed. Environmental groups and Indigenous Nations are currently attempting to make the moratorium permanent and push for a new national monument, yet these will do little to nothing for the handful of pre-existing uranium mines that have been allowed to move forward.
Despite these actions, underground blasting & above ground work has begun at Pinyon Plain/Canyon Mine, just miles from the Grand Canyon. Once Energy Fuels, the company operating the mine, starts hauling out radioactive ore, they plan to transport 30 tons per day through Northern Arizona to the company’s processing mill in White Mesa, 300 miles away.
The White Mesa Mill is the only conventional uranium mill licensed to operate in the U.S. The mill was built on sacred ancestral lands of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe near Blanding, Utah. Energy Fuels disposes radioactive and toxic waste tailings in “impoundments” that take up about 275 acres next to the mill. Since there are limited radioactive waste facilities, White Mesa Mill has become an ad hoc dump for the world’s nuclear wastes that have no final repository.
In so-called New Mexico, a state addicted to nuclear monies for both nuclear weapons and energy facilities, there are two national nuclear labs and two national waste facilities. Along with legacy uranium mines and mills, there was Project Gasbuggy (an underground detonation), a “Broken Arrow” accident near Albuquerque, and countless tons of radioactive waste buried in unlined pits, Pueblo kivas, and watersheds. Currently, there are planned expansions and modifications at Los Alamos National Labs, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and Urenco uranium enrichment facility. Most recently, the state has been threatened by two newly licensed consolidated interim storage facilities for “spent fuel” from nuclear power plants in New Mexico and Texas. The federal government continues to push nuclear projects with financial incentives.
Nuclear proliferation continues as the U.S. allows uranium miners and others who are eligible for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to die. Many continue to suffer and wait for compensation funds to be allocated or are not eligible due to the limitations of the act.
The devastation of nuclear colonialism, which permanently destroys Indigenous communities throughout the world, is not entertainment. This is the terrifying legacy of nuclear energy and weapons that movies like Oppenheimer and duplicitous climate justice activists advocate.
Indigenous Peoples live, suffer, and continue to resist its consequences every day.
END NUCLEAR COLONIALISM!
###
Recommended links:
https://haulno.com
http://www.dinenonukes.org
https://tewawomenunited.org/programs/environmental-health-and-justice-program
https://stopforeverwipp.org/home
https://www.trinitydownwinders.com/
http://www.cleanupthemines.org
https://www.nirs.org/
https://www.radioactivewastecoalition.org
https://www.dont-nuke-the-climate.org/
https://www.nuclear-heritage.net/index.php?title=Nuclear_Heritage_Network
https://yukiyokawano.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBO_C6GkIpM&t=10s
https://apjjf.org/2022/1/Schattschneider-Auslander.html
Articles:
Red Water Pond Road
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-radioactive-legacy-haunts-this-navajo-village-which-fears-a-fractured-future/2020/01/18/84c6066e-37e0-11ea-9541-9107303481a4_story.html
ABQ Museum
https://www.abqjournal.com/lifestyle/arts/albuquerque-museums-online-exhibit-trinity-takes-a-look-at-the-aftermath-of-the-atomic-bomb/article_33d17c15-61c8-5e1f-b32c-99f4ebee5db4.html
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Action
Ox Sam Camp Update: Land Defenders Arrested, Camp Raided After Blocking Excavator
Published
4 months agoon
June 8, 2023By
admin
From www.oxsam.org (follow for more updates).
Read the new press release from 6/8/23 here: https://www.indigenousaction.org/ox-sam-camp-raid-update-one-arrested-as-prayer-tipis-are-bulldozed-and-ceremonial-items-confiscated/
6/7/23
First arrests are underway and camp is being raided after land defenders halted an excavator this morning at Thacker Pass.
OROVADA, NV — This morning, a group of Native American water protectors and allies used their bodies to non-violently block construction of the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, turning back bulldozers and heavy equipment.
The dramatic scene unfolded this morning as workers attempting to dig trenches near Sentinel Rock were turned back by land defenders who ran and put their bodies between heavy equipment and the land.
Now they are being arrested and camp is being raided.
Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone people consider Thacker Pass to be sacred. So when they learned that the area was slated to become the biggest open-pit lithium mine in North America, they filed lawsuits, organized rallies, spoke at regulatory hearings, and organized in the community. But despite all efforts over the last three years, construction of the mine began in March.
That’s what led Native American elders, friends and family, water protectors, and their allies to establish what they call a “prayer camp and ceremonial fire” at Thacker Pass on May 11th, when they setup a tipi at dawn blocking construction of a water pipeline for the mine. A second tipi was erected several days later two miles east, where Lithium Nevada’s construction is defacing Sentinel Rock, one of their most important sacred sites.
Sentinel Rock is integral to many Nevada Tribes’ worldview and ceremony. The area was the site of two massacres of Paiute and Shoshone people. The first was an inter-tribal conflict that gave the area it’s Paiute name: Peehee Mu’huh, or rotten moon. The second was a surprise attack by the US Cavalry on September 12th, 1865, during which the US Army slaughtered dozens. One of the only survivors of the attack was a man named Ox Sam. It is some of Ox Sam’s descendants, the Grandmas, that formed Ox Sam Newe Momokonee Nokotun (Indigenous Women’s Camp) to protect this sacred land for the unborn, to honor and protect the remains of their ancestors, and to conduct ceremonies. Water protectors have been on-site in prayer for nearly a month.
On Monday, Lithium Nevada Corporation also attempted to breach the space occupied by the water protectors. As workers maneuvered trenching equipment into a valley between the two tipis, water protectors approached the attempted work site and peacefully forced workers and their excavator to back up and leave the area. According to one anonymous land defender, Lithium Nevada’s action was “an attempted show of force to fully do away with our tipi and prayer camp around Sentinel Rock.”



Ranchers, recreationists, and members of the public have been allowed to pass without incident and water protectors maintain friendly relationships with locals. Opposition to the mine is widespread in the area, and despite repeated warnings from the local Sheriff, there have been no arrests. Four people, including Dorece Sam Antonio of the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe (an Ox sam descendant) and Max Wilbert of Protect Thacker Pass, have been targeted by court orders barring them from the area. They await a court hearing in Humboldt County Justice Court.
“Lithium Nevada is fencing around the sacred site Sentinel Rock to disrupt our access and yesterday was an escalation to justify removal of our peaceful prayer camps,” said one anonymous water protector at Ox Sam Camp. “Lithium Nevada intends to desecrate and bulldoze the remains of the ancestors here. We are calling out to all water protectors, land defenders, attorneys, human rights experts, and representatives of Tribal Nations to come and stand with us.”



“I’m being threatened with arrest for protecting the graves of my ancestors,” says Dorece Sam Antonio. “My great-great Grandfather Ox Sam was one of the survivors of the 1865 Thacker Pass massacre that took place here. His family was killed right here as they ran away from the U.S. Army. They were never buried. They’re still here. And now these bulldozers are tearing up this place.”
Another spiritual leader on the front lines has been Dean Barlese, a spiritual leader from the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe. Despite being confined to a wheelchair, Barlese led prayers at the site on April 25th (shutting down construction for a day) and returned on May 11th.
“I’m asking people to come to Peehee Mu’huh,” Barlese said. “We need more prayerful people. I’m here because I have connections to these places. My great-great-great grandfathers fought and shed blood in these lands. We’re defending the sacred. Water is sacred. Without water, there is no life. And one day, you’ll find out you can’t eat money.”
The 1865 Thacker Pass massacre is well documented in historical sources, books, newspapers, and oral histories. Despite the evidence but unsurprisingly, the Federal Government has not protected Thacker Pass or even slowed construction of the mine to allow for consultation to take place with Tribes. In late February, the Federal Government recognized tribal arguments that Thacker Pass is a “Traditional Cultural District” eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. But that didn’t stop construction from commencing.



“This is not a protest, it’s a prayer,” said Barlese. “But they’re still scared of me. They’re scared of all of us elders, because they know we’re right and they’re wrong.”
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#policestate
O’odham Executed by Border Patrol: Statement by Raymond Mattia Family
Published
4 months agoon
May 25, 2023By
admin
Raymond Mattia of the Tohono O’odham Nation was executed by US border patrol agents on May 18th at his home. He was reportedly shot 38 times.
A peaceful gathering to support all victims of the
unmonitored violent actions of the Border Patrol and other agencies will be held at The Border
Patrol Station in Why, Az, and Tucson on Golf Links Road this Saturday, May 27th, from
10:00am-Noon.
For more information please visit: https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/05/us-border-patrol-shoots-tohono-oodham.html
Statement by Mattia Raymond’s family:
We have been trying to find the strength to write this statement. This tragedy is so
grievous because it is apparent what had happened. Raymond called for help and, in turn, was
shot down at his doorstep. Raymond’s rights were violated by the authorities whom we trust to
protect our Nation. Improper and unprofessional actions of the agencies involved were witnessed
by family members present near the crime scene. Loved ones sat in agony, not knowing of
Raymond’s condition until they were told that he had passed hours later. Raymond lay in front of
his home for seven hours before a coroner from Tucson arrived.
In our eyes and hearts, we believe that Raymond was approached with excessive and
deadly force that took his life. He was a father, brother, uncle, friend, and an involved
community member. Raymond always fought for what was right, and he will continue to fight
even after his death. This is not an isolated incident, but it should bring awareness of the
oppression our people live through.
We want to thank so many of you for your condolences and support. A GoFundMe for
defense funds will be available soon. A peaceful gathering to support all victims of the
unmonitored violent actions of the Border Patrol and other agencies will be held at The Border Patrol Station in Why, Az, and Tucson on Golf Links Road this Saturday, May 27th, from 10:00am-Noon.
Contact for support: justiceforraymattia@gmail.com
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Traduction française:
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jpwade
July 10, 2012 at 5:31 PM
FWD:
Thank you for your letter and inquiry regarding the Indigenous Elders and Medicine Peoples Council and actions taken by the Forest Service to restrict use of fire during a recent ceremony held by the Council.
The Coconino National Forest became aware of the July 4-7 ceremony several months beforehand, and immediately began working with Shawn Mulford, the key organizer of the ceremony, to coordinate logistics and possible times and locations for the ceremony.
Upon arriving, Mr. Mulford insisted on a specific location, which was located in an area that was associated with the Schultz Fire and closed in June 2011 due to a large buildup of hazardous fuels and increased threat of a wildfire.
As is the normal protocol for any person or group desiring to camp in a closed area, the Coconino National Forest worked with Mr. Mulford to develop a Special Use Permit that would allow them to camp in the closed area for their ceremony. Mr. Mulford refused to sign the permit, so no permit was actually issued.
Due to extreme fire danger and dry forest conditions, many national forests in the southwest, and also tribal lands, entered Stage 2 Fire Restrictions in June (Stage 2 is an increased level of restrictions due to extremely dry conditions that prohibit fire of any kind across the forest, as the smallest spark or ember in such conditions can create a wildfire).
Knowing of the importance of the ceremony, the Forest Service notified Mr. Mulford in June of the restrictions, and numerous attempts were made by the Forest Service to work with Mr. Mulford to accommodate the Council’s ceremony and offer alternate locations and times—in a place and during a time when extreme fire danger and threat to the surrounding community was not a concern. Mr. Mulford resisted any offers and maintained that the ceremony must be held at the closed location and that fire be allowed.
When told that he could not have a fire, Mr. Mulford refused to notify the rest of the Council of the fire restriction and insisted that the Forest Supervisor notify the Council in person when they gathered for the ceremony. The Forest Supervisor did meet with the Council and notify them of the fire restrictions and reasons for such, also delivering a copy of the Closure Order and Fire Restrictions, once again offering to work toward an alternate location where perhaps the fire might not be a threat.
For weeks, and even for the first two days of the ceremony, the Forest Service tried to engage in discussions, requesting that the Council follow current fire restrictions for the safety of the community, as there was a current 7,600-acre wildfire in the southern part of the national forest and conditions were still extremely dangerous. Mr. Mulford and the Council insisted on maintaining a fire, and since all offers were refused, the Forest Service had no choice but to extinguish the fire and issue a citation to Mr. Mulford.
We respect and honor the Council’s desire to hold their ceremony as well as their cultural and religious rights, and we have worked to try to find an alternate location and time for the ceremony since it includes fire during a time of extreme fire danger and fire restrictions to the public.
In addition, there have been multiple ceremonies held by different tribes in the last couple of months that the Forest Service has worked closely with who have refrained from using fire due to the extreme danger.
We must often make tough decisions such as closing an area to any camping and fire and understand this is a difficult decision for the Council to accept. However, the protection of the Coconino National Forest and public health and safety is our goal. We are duty bound to protect and preserve our country’s forest and the communities that live in and around it.
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Craig J. Johnson, M.A.
Tribal Relations Specialist / Archaeologist
Coconino National Forest Supervisor’s Office
1824 South Thompson Street
Flagstaff, Arizona 86001
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robyn langford
July 12, 2012 at 2:07 AM
this cannot be allowed. The American Indians have been treated very badly from when settlers first appeared in their country. The invaders have systematically taken the land, the language, the very essence of the Indian Nations. This is the 21st century. the world is watching . Time to stop these atrocities. You are living in a dying culture (white) and will only survive if you work and cooperate with the Native peoples of the land.