Friday, March 29, 2024

BREAKING NEWS: Indigenous Elders & Supporters Occupy ALEC Member Salt River Project Headquarters


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, December 2, 2011

Media Contact:

Email: AZresistsmedia@gmail.com

Websites: www.azresistsalec.wordpress.com

www.ShutDownALEC.org

BREAKING NEWS: Indigenous Elders & Supporters Occupy ALEC Member Salt River Project Headquarters

Located at: 1521 North Project Drive  Tempe, AZ

TEMPE, AZ — Indigenous Dine’ (Navajo) and O’odham elders and supporters are taking direct action by occupying Salt River Project (SRP) headquarters today at 10am. This action is occurring while the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) holds their “States & Nation Policy Summit” in Scottsdale, AZ. SRP is on ALEC’s corporate board.

Louise Benally, a resident of Black Mesa impacted by SRP’s operations, is delivering a letter to SRP that outlines critical concerns of her community. She expressed that “My community is heavily impacted by Salt River Project’s coal and water extraction activities. SRP has extensive ties to Peabody Energy’s massive mining operations and the Navajo Generating Station which they co-own. Coal mining has destroyed housands of archeological sites and our only water source has been seriously compromised. Their operations are causing widespread respiratory problems, lung diseases, and other health impacts on humans, the environment, and all living things.”

“…We demand that SRP & Peabody meaningfully involve the indigenous communities they are impacting, and that they convert to non-fossil fuel based energy sources and address the health impacts on our communities.”

“…ALEC, acting in the corporate interests of SRP & Peabody Energy, continues policies & operations that are not only devastating whole communities and ecosystems, but greatly de-stabilizing our planet’s climate for the profit of a few, the so-called 1%.” stated Benally.

Ofelia Rivas, an elder and activist of the O’odham, Indigenous Peoples on the border of Arizona and Mexico, states “As indigenous people we understand that the balance of the land is actually the balance of our people and any disturbance of that is very devastating not only to our spiritual health but our overall physical health, as well as all living things. As indigenous people we are not separated from our environment. We’re deeply connected to everything in the universe: the land, the mountains, water, air, and all plant and animal life.”

“…The proposed loop 202 freeway extension that threatens South Mountain and the continuing construction of the US and Mexico border and it’s militarization. Trade policies such as NAFTA and CANAMEX alter our way of life and threatens our Him’dag. We will no longer accept the violence the state attempts to enforce on us along their border. Especially the aggressive legislation of ALEC. We demand you recognize the declaration of universal indigenous rights as well as the rights of our mother earth. Enough is enough, it ends now!”

The massive canals constructed before colonial invasion of O’odham lands are now being utilized by Salt River Project. O’odham culture is deeply rooted throughout this area, which is as far north as the Phoenix Valley, as far west as the coast of Mexico in what is now Rocky Point, east as the San Pedro river and as far south as Hermosillo and the Sierra Madres Mountains.

Ray Aguilar stated that “the air conditioning and power we enjoy and water we drink comes at the suffering caused by SRP and Peabody’s exploitation of the land and people. When will we realize that our privileges our based on this? We must take further action. I just spent one week doing direct, on-land support with Black Mesa residents assisting with basic essential human needs.  That’s why I’m here today. This critical situation would not exist if not for these greedy corporations.”

Peabody Energy, also an ALEC member, is the world’s largest private-sector coal company. With 2010 sales of 246 million tons and nearly $7 billion in revenues, Peabody creates 10 percent of U.S. power and 2 percent of worldwide electricity.

Since 1974 more than 14,000 Dine’ families have been forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands due in large part due to U.S.-backed tribal councils and cola mining.

To protest the deadly legacy of environmental and cultural destruction caused by the company’s collusion with Peabody Energy the protest has stated the following:

Big Mountain Sovereign Dine’ Nation

P.O. Box 23501

Flagstaff, AZ 86001

 

Salt River Project

1521 N. Project Drive

Tempe, AZ 85281

David Rousseau, President

John R. Hoopes, Vice President

CC:

American Legislative Exchange Council

Ben Shelly, Navajo Nation President

LeRoy N. Shingoitewa, Hopi Tribe Chairman

Barack Obama, United States President

Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona

Gregory H. Boyce, CEO, Peabody Energy

Peabody Energy Corporate Headquarters

Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission

Ben Nuvamsa, Former Chairman, Hopi Tribe

Black Mesa Water Coalition

Black Mesa Trust

Forgotten People

Gila River Indian Community

Zuni Salt Lake Coalition

Indigenous Environmental Network

Center for Biological Diversity

International Indian Treaty Council

To the Owners, Operators, & Beneficiaries of Salt River Project,

We are a community that is heavily impacted by the Salt River Project’s coal and water extraction activities. We are particularly impacted by Peabody Energy’s mining operations to which you have extensive ties, the Navajo Generating Station which you co-own, and the exploitation of the water that underlies our ancestral lands. We wish to formally bring before you some critical concerns of our community.

The Navajo Generating Station and Peabody’s mining operations cause widespread respiratory problems, lung diseases, asthma issues, other health impacts on humans, the environment, and all living things. We don’t have access to health insurance. The plants and animals are also impacted and there are no studies on that. There is no remedy for that for now.

Peabody is an extremely disrespectful company, they’re tearing up everything for the coal. Mother earth and our cultural resources such as sacred sites are not at all respected. Back in the mid-nineties, grandmothers were defending the land when the mine was being expanded more and more, and we witnessed peoples’ graves being totally bulldozed. They have been exploiting and destroying sacred places, and that is not being talked about.

And the coal ash that they’re trying to dump on our lands now—it’s really no different than the uranium that we have suffered from for so many years. It’s toxic and poisonous, and there’s no safe place to store the coal ash.

The mining needs to stop. Until then, we demand that you honor the clean air act and the EPA’s highest standards by installing the best retrofit technology available on the Navajo Generation Station to reduce pollution from mercury, arsenic, and other toxic pollutants being released in to the air.

Our water is being exploited and our aquifers have been depleted for decades, causing springs to go dry and vegetation to change. Salt River Project needs to stop manipulating the Navajo and Hopi tribal governments, coercing them to sign agreements without consent from tribal members. Our water resources are not replenishable, and without the water, we cannot continue our way of life.

The beneficiaries of the energy and water you sell must realize that our suffering is a direct result of their consumption. They must also understand that the continued taking of finite “natural resources” is creating imbalances that threaten the survival of everyone’s future generations.

These issues are not being heard: Stop exploiting and destroying our ancestral homelands. Stop poisoning us. Stop meeting behind closed doors. Stop greenwashing your unfair and harmful practices. Recognize that you have a unique ability and thus a responsibility to put an end to these things, and that by not­­­­ doing so you are also harming yourselves.

For background information: https://supportblackmesa.org

For information on ALEC protests: http://azresistsalec.wordpress.com and

http://www.alecexposed.org

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Black Mesa Indigenous Support Funding & Donation Guidelines


Photo: Michelle Christiance

Table of Contents:

  • BLACK MESA INDIGENOUS SUPPORT FUNDING & DONATION GUIDELINES:
  • THE SCOPE OF BMIS’s WORK:
  • GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING: AN IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY TO REFLECT OUR POLITICS:
  • SOLIDARITY, NOT CHARITY!
  • LOCATE YOURSELF IN THE STRUGGLE:
  • THE COMMUNITIES OF BLACK MESA WHERE WE FOCUS OUR SUPPORT EFFORTS:
  • DISTRIBUTING SUPPORT EFFORTS EVENLY:
  • FUNDRAISING FOR BLACK MESA: PROJECTS & WAYS TO SUPPORT:
  • IF YOU FUNDRAISE FOR YOURSELF:
  • EQUITABLE FUNDRAISING:
  • THE IMPORTANCE OF REPORTBACKS:
  • FUNDRAISING GUIDELINES:
  • FUNDRAISING TIPS & RESOURCES:
  • WE WELCOME YOUR INSIGHT:
  • APPRECIATION & CLOSING:

BLACK MESA INDIGENOUS SUPPORT FUNDING & DONATION GUIDELINES:
Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is grateful for fundraising efforts in support of the indigenous peoples of Black Mesa, AZ who are protecting their communities, ancestral homelands, future generations and the planet we all share.  Black Mesa encompasses a very large area inhabited by both Dine’ (Navajo) and Hopi peoples. Primarily, BMIS focuses our support efforts with the Dine’ communities who are impacted by and resisting forced relocation policies of the US government and massive coal mining operations of Peabody Energy.

The following document provides some guidelines to help boost your fundraising efforts in support of Black Mesa.  First we give a sense of the wide variety of projects supported by grassroots fundraising over the last ten plus years. The sections giving a historical account of the struggle and differentiating our model of grassroots fundraising from charity will provide context for how we approach support work and why. Be sure to check out the list of families’ projects and ways to support, a condensed list of the actual guidelines  for quick reference, and lastly helpful tips and resources for fundraising. Stay posted for BMIS’s Support, Representation, & Accountability guidelines!

We hope that these guidelines will be used to help keep BMIS and the resistance communities we work with informed of all of the good work that is happening on their behalf. Keeping us informed is a way of practicing accountability, and it also helps us plan our budget and distribute incoming support as evenly as possible between the families.

We want to acknowledge that some of you reading this may already be aware of the points we’re raising. You may be from Black Mesa.  The supporter network is very diverse, some supporters are relatives of Black Mesa residents, some come from wealthy white families, while others are working and middle class people of all races, some are genderqueer, some are rural and some urban – everyone has varying access to power, privilege, and resources. Since we work with supporters from a diversity of class and political backgrounds, we are trying to make this document relevant to everyone, simultaneously recognizing it will be more necessary and useful to some.

Those of us in the BMIS collective do not claim to have all the answers, however we’ve learned a lot along the way, sometimes from mistakes we’ve made, and by taking direction from families. This document is a reflection of that. It’s a work in progress and we hope it continues to grow.
We welcome your insight, critiques, and questions. We hope that these documents spark a critical yet constructive dialogue concerning the challenges that we face as we engage in social transformation.

THE SCOPE OF BMIS’s WORK:
Consistently for the past 20 years the power of grassroots funding has put firewood, nutritious food, and other supplies into the hands of 100 plus families in resistance every fall season. BMIS has been involved in the annual fall-season caravans since our inception in 1998. With the guidance of residents, we have branched off to coordinate our own annual fall and spring caravans since 2008, while still being in collaboration with fellow support groups who organize them. We make an effort to purchase wood from the local community, and obtain wood permits for wood crews. Supporters and families have worked together in rebuilding or doing repairs on homes; dozens of corals and a ton of other construction projects have been completed.  Community roads have been restored. Dozens of vehicles have been fixed, either by purchasing necessary parts or by sponsoring mechanics to come to Black Mesa and work with people there. Hundreds of people have come out to herd sheep. Community members —  phone and gas have been financially sponsored so that they can check in with their relatives throughout the hundreds of miles that their communities encompasses. Community meetings, gatherings, and feasts have been sponsored or made possible — purchasing local mutton and compensating the cooks.   Funds have sponsored elders and second generation resisters (residents and relatives) of Black Mesa to attend speaking engagements, protests, and conferences around the country in an effort to amplify the voices of those from Black Mesa, so that they can network, and to make the resistance to forced relocation and massive coal mining operations at Black Mesa more visible in movements for social and environmental justice.   Currently funds are being used being raised to support family members in making a documentary about water rights on Black Mesa.

There is an array of other needs that have been funded by grassroots fundraising: getting people’s livestock back which have been impounded by tribal governments; for legal fees, and bereavement/funeral costs. Additionally it’s worth mentioning that the power of grassroots organizing and fundraising also creates holistic clinics on Black Mesa, which has been separate from BMIS’s work. Our overhead is extremely low. Nearly all of BMIS’s funds go to the communities that we are working in support of.  We are an all-volunteer collective. The costs we do have include occasional phone bills mainly during the times of the caravans, repairs for BMIS trucks used on Black Mesa, community feasts that supporters are invited to, and very little else.  Most of the time we rely on our community connections & creativity to keep any organizational expenses at a minimum.

All of the projects are at the request and guidance of the community. If you fund raise and give directly to a family, please let us know so we can focus resources elsewhere. Our involvement and communication with community members helps maintain a check and balance for how funds are evenly distributed.

We want to acknowledge that the supporter network plays one small part in addressing the needs of individuals & whole communities impacted by the personal and the devastating impacts of colonialism and genocide. We cannot reach everybody that we’d like to.

GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING: AN IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY TO REFLECT OUR POLITICS: Fundraising provides an opportunity to practice our politics in concrete and meaningful ways. It needs to be addressed with the same attention and thoughtfulness as other aspects of our work. Since we are a grassroots, all-volunteer collective and network, we do not receive nor rely on any institutional funding for support efforts, but instead count on each participant’s ingenuity, creativity, and hard work to make it all come together.  A volunteer-only model is most in alignment with our values of fostering committed allyship in movements led by people most impacted by colonialism, racism, and ecological destruction (in this case, the resistance communities of Black Mesa) . That means doing this work not based on income and not relying on large donors, foundations, and so forth who then have control over the work, and unintentionally or intentionally can turn resistance movements into organizations that work within instead of posing a direct threat to oppressive institutions.

The questions of who is raising money for whom, and why, is super important.  As portion of our vision states: We see ourselves as part of a people-powered uprising for a healthy planet liberated from colonialism, fossil fuel extraction, exploitative economies, racism, and oppression for our generation and generations to come. We value relationships built around principles of mutualism, accountability, and innovation. To back this up, we think it’s necessary to acknowledge institutional racism; it’s roots in capitalism, and the many ways in which this system has always been based on white supremacy.  Centuries of colonization, genocide, and systems of oppression have broken trust. This history continues to play out even within well-intentioned social movements. The wealth created from the theft of indigenous land, labor of African captives and war on Mexico made the European American colonial owners a very wealthy class of people, and provided the capital that created capitalism in the United States*.
The ongoing illegal expropriation of natural resources and labor, theft of territory, and genocide committed against the indigenous peoples, as well as the militarization of the border and prison industrial complex, still continues to foster the growth and accumulation generated by globalized free-market capitalism.

SOLIDARITY, NOT CHARITY!
By not making these acknowledgments our support would be no different than charity. The nature of charity work assumes that people are incapable of their own self determination and need to be saved by an outside individual or organization. It acts to put the power in the hands of the outsider.  We recognize the ways in which long-standing institutions and systems work to continuously undermine the sovereignty of indigenous nations. Charity perpetuates the root issues that cause communities to be marginalized in the first place, thus keeping the most  privileged communities secure their dominance and maintaining power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already. In effect, it shifts the blame onto the marginalized communities themselves. In this way it upholds and continues systemic oppression and colonialism.

“Developing a real community-based economic system that redistributes wealth and allows all people to gain access to what they need is essential to complete our vision of a liberated world. Grassroots strategies are a step in that direction.”**

On Black Mesa, relocation laws have made it difficult for people to continue living on their ancestral homelands.  Institutional racism has fueled neglect of public services such as water, roads, health care, and schools.  Due to lack of local job opportunities and federal strangulation on Indian self-sufficiency, extended families are forced to live many miles away to earn incomes, although during these hard economic times lots of younger folks are moving back in with their relatives.  Many of the families that we are in support of are elders and winters can be extremely rough on families. Families are often without phones, internet, electricity, and running water – leaving families driving tens of miles away on rough terrain to meet their needs. As one of their resistance strategies they call upon native youth and outside support as they maintain their traditional way of life in the face of the largest relocation of indigenous people in the US since the Trail of Tears.

Why include these details in our fundraising guidelines? Because the struggle of Black Mesa is deep and complex, and including these kinds of facts and analysis is important to mention whether one is fundraising, soliciting donations, or planning to stay with a family. In doing so it sets our work apart from ‘a charitable cause’ and causes us to challenge the root causes of the issues in the first place.  The mainstream media has presented the Black Mesa story as a centuries-old land dispute between two tribes. We know that this racist narrative needs to be challenged. What’s happening at Black Mesa is a microcosm of how the plutocracy of  transnational corporations take and exploit indigenous lands with the cooperation of host governments. Divide and conquer has a long history in America as a technique of removing indigenous peoples from their lands. Much of the energy that makes the desert “bloom” (Vegas, LA, Phoenix, Tucson, and so forth) comes from the Black Mesa strip mines. It’s not an ‘Indian only issue’ (we’ve occasionally been told not to be involved). Rather, as Native-led organization Honor The Earth so eloquently states: believing in “a sustainable world is predicated on transforming economic, social, and political relationships that have been based on systems of conquest toward systems based on just relationships with each other and with the natural world….we are committed to restoring a paradigm that recognizes our collective humanity and our joint dependence on the Earth”.

LOCATE YOURSELF IN THE STRUGGLE:
We encourage supporters who are not from Black Mesa to locate themselves in the struggle by asking how they are connected to it. In doing so it can contribute to building a perspective that addresses systems of oppression, the people those systems affect, and to understand how the mechanisms of control actually operate. Judith Nies draws some great connections in her article The Black Mesa Syndrome: Indian Lands, Black Gold: “We are all impoverished by the forces operating at Black Mesa, which degrade both culture and nature, and offer us instead a pseudo-reality–a version of events that prevents clear analysis and creative thinking.” When we understand these connections, we can craft solutions that truly help everybody.  Building movements that include groups that explicitly address the colonial, racial, gender and sexual dimensions of the oppressive economic, social, and political systems is key to that process.

For those of us with white privilege, we must build an anti-racist analysis into our definition of accountability. Those of us currently in BMIS, who do have white skin privilege, are have to consistently assess our work, checking in with Black Mesa families whether our support efforts reflect the priorities in their community.

We encourage supporters to develop long-term relationships with multiple families and to be able to hear feedback directly from them, knowing that BMIS does the same. This is just one component of how grassroots fundraising can provide a check and balance structure.

THE COMMUNITIES OF BLACK MESA WHERE WE FOCUS OUR SUPPORT EFFORTS:
Black Mesa encompasses a very large area of both Dine’ and Hopi peoples. The communities where we primarily focus our support efforts are where Dine’ families reside in an area known as the Hopi Partitioned Lands (HPL) – lands partitioned by the government – also known as being on the ‘wrong side of the fence line’.  Although we see the fence line as an arbitrary boundary made by the US and tribal governments, we primarily support Dine’ families affected by forced relocation policies and coal mining. Not only do families living on the ‘HPL’ areas not receive funding from Hopi, Navajo, or US governments, they are prohibited from making an economic livelihood for themselves. Tim Johnson, a resident of Dove Springs, explains how he’s not allowed to make any kind of profit because he is living on the ‘Hopi Partitioned Lands.’ People are not allowed economic development of any kind. That’s really choking you out”. The specific communities that we work with are those living in Coal Mine Mesa, Sand Springs, Tonalea-Red Lake, White Sands, Cactus Valley, Teestoh, Star Mountain, Big Mountain, Rocky Ridge, Mosquito Springs, Dove Springs, Red Willow Springs, Owl Springs, Cottonwood Springs, Jeddito, Lowe Mountain, Wide Ruins, and Thin Rock Mesa.

BMIS occasionally supports families located on the Navajo Partitioned Lands (NPL),  especially those families affected by the encroaching mine and also affected by small grazing areas due to the fence.

DISTRIBUTING SUPPORT EFFORTS EVENLY: As directed by the families, we strive to distribute funds, donations, and supporters evenly- whether in the form of supplies, monetary donations, work crews, or sheepherders.
Distributing support between evenly means taking into consideration each family and or home-site, the various regions, clans, those who are considered ‘non-signers’ or ‘signers’, those who may be more prone to being forcibly removed, those who are elderly living alone, those who may be experiencing harassment (and theft such as livestock impoundment); requests, and folks who are going to meetings and organizing.  Additionally, we often place womyn supporters with grandmothers, which also determines where support

We are a small organization and can only operate within each of our capacities. This means that we don’t get to everybody; furthermore, it can be one of the major challenges of being an all-volunteer organization. At times it means that there are three or four people doing the bulk of the coordinating. So this is yet another very important reason why BMIS and the support network needs to be working with organizers from these communities.

FUNDRAISING FOR BLACK MESA: PROJECTS AND WAYS TO SUPPORT:   All of the projects are at the request and guidance of the community. All of the projects are at the request and guidance of the Dine’ communities. Our involvement and communication with community members helps maintain a check and balance for how funds are evenly distributed.

  • Danny Blackgoat is currently bringing local indigenous youth to Black Mesa to work on hogans, repair community roads and work on other projects. With your support he intends on this being a continuing project.
  • Inter-generational indigenous youth support program.
  • Several local residents and relatives are organizing an event called ‘Honoring the Elders’. It is a community gathering and feast to honor the elders as well as to remember the elders who have passed.
  • There are requests for mechanics to come to Black Mesa in support of the resisters. A project to fix many families vehicles spanning across Black Mesa ‘HPL’ lands.
  • Sponsor Big Mountain resident Louise Benally so that she can attend the National Environmental Justice advisory conference at the end of October.
  • Support Black Mesa residents who want to attend community prayer gatherings at the San Francisco Peaks.
  • Assist residents in dealing with water and air issues at Black Mesa.
  • Help local residents revive a local organization called ‘The Voices of the Land’, or to establish another organization that serves as a central voice for their communities to better deal with both the Navajo and Hopi tribes.
  • Support local economy:
    • Inquire about arts and crafts (rugs, sheepskins, wool & dyed yarns, jewelry) prior to your visit so that families can prepare and have them ready.
    • Are you part of a food run? Then think ahead and put orders in with the organic farmers.   Are you getting wood to multiple families? Purchase wood from relatives and pay them to deliver it. Please speak with us about tips.
    • Sponsoring a gathering or meeting? Then purchase a sheep from a family and pay relatives to butcher and prepare food.
  • Sponsor residents who want to attend gatherings, shareholder meetings, protests, and other peaking engagements.
    • Specifically, support is needed to help residents travel to the upcoming protest against the States and Nation Policy Summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) near Phoenix, AZ. Help second generation resisters have a presence at the demonstrations in Nov 28 – Dec 3, 2011 so that they can represent their communities’ long struggle against colonial expansion and resource extraction.  For more information on the protest, visit http://azresistsalec.wordpress.com/.
  • To assist in covering the costs of livestock impoundments so that families can get their livestock back.
  • Sponsor families to get to community meetings.
  • Funds to help cover the cost of funerals.
  • Organizing caravans of work crews to Black Mesa during the fall in preparation of the freezing winter temperatures and again, smaller work parties in the spring time.
  • Funds to purchase wood from locals on Black Mesa, for wood permits so families will not get harassed for collecting firewood, or to cover the cost of gas specifically for collecting wood and chainsaw oil.
  • Supplies for specific work projects that families have requested such as minor repairs of homes & livestock corrals, maintenance of roads, as well as food for the host family at gatherings.
  • Sponsor relatives to drive around to check in with their families. Gas money and wear and tear on vehicles are costly!
  • Check back here often for an ongoing NEEDS LIST (located on the BMIS website).

You can donate for any of these projects here: https://supportblackmesa.org/donate/. You can also choose to earmark specific projects for your donations.

IF YOU FUNDRAISE FOR YOURSELF to participate in work caravans or to stay with a family three weeks or longer:   While we choose to build a culture of inclusiveness, we think it’s important for supporters who are not from Black Mesa to question your intentions for why you want to come. We especially welcome indigenous folks, people who are planning to be involved long term, folks who are deeply invested in and on the front-lines of movements for social, economic, environmental justice in their communities, and returning supporters.

It is essential that you make it absolutely clear that the money you are raising is not going directly to the elders and families resisting coal and forced relocation but for *you* to stay there X amount of weeks in support of those resistance communities. Talk about your connection with Black Mesa.   If you are fundraising for gas and food money to get out yourself to Black Mesa please notify us prior.  If you already know a family, consult with them.

Please communicate with BMIS (or other coordinating organization) about your stay on the land and we can give you an estimate of how much your stay will cost. If you fund raise more than what is needed, you can spend it on things the family needs or donate it to BMIS.

EQUITABLE FUNDRAISING:
BMIS & the regional grass-roots organizers that we count on are committed to creating a space that is grounded in anti-oppression principles. To actualize them, we’ve adopted an equitable fundraising model from the San Francisco Bay Area support group.  In addition to fundraising for direct financial and material support to Dine’ elders & families in resistance at Black Mesa, we encourage you to consider having ‘sponsorship fundraisers’ that offers sliding scale costs to participants who might not otherwise be able to come.

Being around the elders of Black Mesa and their inspiring example of 35-plus-years of resistance is an incredible privilege. Therefore we encourage fundraising for Indigenous people who want to come to Black Mesa. However, BMIS is unfortunately not in a position to offer scholarships as of Fall of 2011.

We think it is important that people with access to more resources are able to mobilize those resources to support working-class participation through sliding scale costs. This means having sliding scale costs for caravan participation. The participant expectations can be negotiated depending on what people are able to do, as these are general guidelines. If you adopt this model you must be absolutely clear in your fundraising efforts about it.  Please talk with BMIS and/or coordinators in your region with any questions, comments, or concerns.

THE IMPORTANCE OF REPORTBACKS:
Bringing your experience back home also allows your community to understand where their donations are going and opens the door for transparency.   Any fundraising you have done is a great opportunity to create strong ties between your experience on the land and the people who supported you in getting there. Report backs, brainstorms with your communities about how you can continue supporting the resisters on and around Black Mesa while living back home, supporting indigenous struggles where you live, and how you plan to return are ways to keep the dialogue open for long term support.  Please keep us informed and let us know if we can support you in this endeavor. We look forward to seeing how supporters can integrate their experiences into their work and life!

FUNDRAISING GUIDELINES:  
These guidelines are in the process of being developed with the guidance from the families and relatives of Black Mesa.

  • If you are using BMIS’s name, website, literature, or tax exempt number please make sure that your event fits the mission and principles of BMIS.
  • When you have a fundraising event idea, be sure to contact the families if you are already in contact with and/or BMIS so that we know money is being raised in the name of Big Mountain & surrounding communities of Black Mesa.
  • Distinctly set yourself apart from charitable work. Be sure to include information and analysis regarding institutional racism.
  • Be careful about stating ‘for Big Mountain’ but rather use more inclusive language such as Black Mesa communities impacted by forced relocation and coal mining, or Big Mountain & surrounding communities of Black Mesa, or the so-called Hopi-Partitioned-Lands communities.
  • If you fund raise and give directly to a family, please let us know so we can focus resources elsewhere.
  • To do direct, on-land support try to regularly check in with families as to what the needs of their communities are. Please ask your group and various families if your support efforts reflect the priorities in their community.
  • Especially during a time of national caravans, specify who will be doing what fundraising, so that you don’t have sources who become overwhelmed or irritated by repeated solicitations from different people in our support network.
  • Consider having ‘sponsorship fundraisers’ that offers sliding scale costs to participants who might not otherwise be able to come, especially relatives and indigenous organizers.
  • When fundraising, consider the needs of those of us and our support networks whose finances are tight.   Make events accessible by offering a sliding scale entrance fee ($3 to $10 for a benefit concert as an example).   Raising awareness is just as important as raising money.
  • If raising money for your travels to get to Black Mesa: You must make it absolutely clear that the money you are raising is not going directly to the elders and families resisting coal and forced relocation but for *you* to stay there X amount of weeks in support of those resistance communities.
  • Please notify a family that you already know, BMIS, or your local coordinator prior to funding for yourself.   If you raise more than what is needed, you can spend it on things the family needs or donate it to BMIS.
  • Do a report-back in your community.
  • Consider supporting local indigenous herbalists & health care practitioners as part of being an ally. Support their ongoing health care practices in their communities.
  • If you aren’t already, try to collaborate with other community groups in your region, specifically indigenous communities. Consider doing joint benefits with local grassroots indigenous groups.

FUNDRAISING TIPS & RESOURCES:

  • Host events, hit up non-profits, generous food vendors, and folks in your own networks.
  • Especially when doing repetitive fundraising for big events like the fall caravan, collaborate with other community groups and put on events together, or see if there are ways to sell food or table at events that are already taking place. Check in with indigenous communities in your area. Consider doing joint benefits with local grassroots indigenous groups.
  • Template Letter for Soliciting Donations (If you need our tax-ID # contact us)
  • 8 ways to raise 2,500 in 10 days by Kim Klein & Stephanie Roth
  • Organizing and Fundraising – Sisters In The Struggle by Vicki Quatmann
  • Please Donate!
  • Accountability Guidelines for supporting Black Mesa. (coming soon)
  • Check out this excellent book: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

WE WELCOME YOUR INSIGHT:
This document is a work in progress and we hope it sparks a critical yet constructive dialogue concerning the challenges that we face as we engage in social transformation.

As we strive to be increasingly accountable with each other in this work, we welcome feedback, insights, advice, criticism and direction. Be on the lookout for a new document – guidelines for Black Mesa support, representation, & accountability.  We acknowledge that we may not always agree with this feedback — and accountability does not require that we do so, but we will always listen to it, and seek to grow from it.

APPRECIATION & CLOSING:
As of the writing of these guidelines, BMIS is an organization comprised of white-privileged folks who are trying to be strong allies to the indigenous peoples of Black Mesa & beyond in the struggle against colonialism and oppression   — and to free ourselves from these systems of conquest that we believe compromises the humanity of us all — We are especially grateful to those inspirational figures who have played such important roles in our lives, and have made our journey thus far possible. The list of names are too long to put here and we would not want to leave anybody out. They have taught, guided, and struggled with us as we’ve sought to become more effective advocates for justice and being people capable of acting in real solidarity with those who are the targets of system injustice every day. We give thanks to residents & relatives of Black Mesa, as well as several regional caravan coordinators without whom this letter could not be written without their support.

We dream of a social movement that will transform social, economic and political realities within our lifetimes for a healthy planet liberated from fossil fuel extraction, exploitative economies, colonialism, racism and all oppressions for our generation and generations to come.
This dream continues to awaken in our hearts, inspired by the on-going resistance of communities such as Black Mesa.

May the resistance of Big Mountain and surrounding communities on Black Mesa always be remembered, and supported!

Give back to the Earth! Give to future generations!

Sincerely,
The Black Mesa Indigenous Support Collective

https://supportblackmesa.org
blackmesais@gmail.com
Voice Mail: 928.773.8086

 

* Shinin’ the Light on White, Part One: White Privilege By Sharon Martinas
** From an essay by Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide; The Revolution Will Not Be Funded – Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.






Paint protest disrupts NAU jobs fair


Cross-posted from AZ Daily Sun

A man threw red paint on a display board at an NAU jobs fair on Thursday as part of a protest (Courtesy photo)

A man walked into an NAU jobs fair at around 1 p.m. on Thursday and threw what appeared to be a cup of red paint at a Peabody Energy Corporation display booth, according to witnesses.

Shortly after that, another man walked in and released balloons that read things like “murderers,” the witness said. One of the men jumped on a bike and rode away, the other changed clothes and took off running south. It’s possible a third suspect was filming the incident, according to NAU spokesperson Tom Bauer. The suspects were described as white males between 22 and 25 years of age. It’s unknown if they are students. “Northern Arizona University strongly condemns this despicable act,” NAU President John Haeger said in a statement. “This behavior disrupted an event that benefits students by connecting them with potential employers. We will pursue the individuals involved and file charges against them.” Peabody Energy Corporation is the largest private coal company in the world. The corporation settled a lawsuit in August that accused it of conspiring with others to cheat the Navajo Nation out of hundreds of millions of dollars in coal royalties. Eric Betz can be reached at ebetz@azdailysun.com or 556-2250.
Read more: http://azdailysun.com/news/local/education/paint-protest-disrupts-nau-jobs-fair/article_0c9adb2b-6146-51c8-903e-8c9209e6160d.html#ixzz1a9KemzZX





Statement of Navajo elder and relocation resister Pauline Whitesinger- May 2011


Hello, my name is Pauline Whitesinger. I am an Edgewater Clan, born for Apache clan. I am Navajo or “Din4”. I am up in the years, i don’t know how old exactly.

The place where I am standing has been subject to a “Land dispute”. So they drew a line around us. I was told to move out by the government. I do not wish to leave so I am staying here. They also have been mining coal around here and they want to do it right here where i live but i will not get out of their way. I do not support the mining. That is what I have been dealing with.

These days I am hearing that they have more money available for Relocation. New funds are available for people who will sign away their ancestoral birthrights. I am so tired of hearing it. I have been to the Capter meeting last week and told them to quit saying it. We have no strong leaders  for us as relocation resistors in the Tribal Government. There must be something wrong with this thing they call “elections”. The only people who ever seem to win are the ones who say “I will eat the earth. I will have the earth dug up and ripped to shreds.”

We have our own meetings from time to time as a community of relocation resisters. They seem to draw a lot of attention from the BIA, FBI, and “homeland security”. But I still believe that we deserve to have such meetings and we will continue to organize them.

There are impoundments going on right now out here. The “Rangers” are hauling off a lot of Navajo horses and cows. Whatever reason they come up with, it costs us a lot of time and $ and harms the livestock. I am fed up with it. And then the other day a bunch of trucks and trailers came out and stole a lot of scerap metal from my family. Maybe it was the rangers. In either case we are in need of lookouts and security to defend our livelihood. We don’t get any help from the BIA. They are the ones who are doing it to us.

Even among those of us with the line drawn around us there is inequality now. Those of us who did not sign the “Accomodation Agreement in 1997 are having a hard time while signers drive around in a fancy truck with a big water barrel and suck up all the water out of the well. Why not herd your sheep down to drink instead of hauling water to them?

I live in the way that my mother and father lived. Caring for the herds, the garden and the sheep. Who will help me with the work it entails? The Rangers?

I heard on the news recently of the assassination of one of our leaders overseas. Let’s have all of our native youth that are fighting over there return home immediately.

I live by myself for the most part. And there is a lot of work here with no running water or electricity, herds of sheep, goats, cows and horses. Two cornfields. My children have relocated, mostly because they are ill with diabetes and have to go to dialysis in the cities. They live several hours drive from me in different directions. My grandkids, some of them are very capable helpers, but they have been harrassed and chased off by the rangers. So they don’t stay very long.

So I havε sheepherders and other types of helpers come and stay with me sometimes. Some of them work very hard to learn the life out here and some stay with me all winter long. Right now i am looking at another summer alone and I wish it were not so. I am inviting you supporters to come and help me with the work here and to keep in the way of the BIA that wants us Navajos off of Black Mesa. Bring whatever strange foods you eat and I will sample it for you. Some of it I even like. And you are welcome to eat Navajo food at my table. A lot of people have said a lot of stuff about Big Mountain over the years and i think most of it is lies. Come out and see for yourself.

And a big THANK YOU to all supporters for the work that you do. Ahehee!!!

All mail correspondence to:
Pauline Whitesinger,
P.o.Box 973
Hotevilla, AZ, 86030

Translated and transcribed by Owen Johnson stubx@yahoo.com






Support Front-Line Indigenous Communities of Black Mesa, AZ Resisting Massive Coal Mining!


Join the Caravan in Support of Indigenous Communities Who Are in Their Fourth Decade of Resisting Massive Coal Mining Operations on Their Ancestral Homelands of Big Mountain & Black Mesa, AZ. November 19th – 26th, 2011

Communities of Black Mesa Have Always Maintained That Their Struggle for Life, Land, & Future Generations Is For Our Collective Survival.

 

Greetings from Black Mesa Indigenous Support,

We are excited to once again extend the invitation from Dineh resisters of the Big Mountain regions of Black Mesa in joining a caravan of work crews in support of the on-going struggle to protect their communities, ancestral homelands, future generations and planet that we all share. These communities are in their fourth decade year of resistance against the US Government’s forced relocation policies, Peabody Coal’s financial interests, and an unsustainable fossil fuel based economy.

Participating in this caravan is one small way in supporting these courageous communities who are serving as the very blockade to massive coal mining on Black Mesa. The aim of this caravan is to honor the requests and words of the elders and their families. With their guidance we will carry their wishes & demands far beyond just the annual caravans and link this struggle with social, environmental, and climate justice movements that participants may be a part of.

By assisting with direct on-land projects you are supporting families on their ancestral homelands in resistance to an illegal occupation and destruction of sacred sites by Peabody Energy. We will be chopping and hauling firewood, doing minor repair work, hauling water, road maintence, offering holistic health care, and sheep-herding before the approaching freezing winter months.

Indigenous nations are disproportionately targeted by fossil fuel extraction & environmental devastation; Black Mesa is no exception. Peabody Energy, previously Peabody Coal Company (the world’s largest private-sector coal company) is continuing to scheme for ways to continue their occupation of tribal lands under the guise of extracting “clean coal”.

Peabody’s Black Mesa mine has been the source of an estimated 325 million tons of greenhouse gases that have been discharged into the atmosphere.* In the 30+ years of disastrous operations, Dineh and Hopi communities in Arizona have been ravaged by Peabody’s coal mining. As a result of the massive mining operation, thousands of families have had their land taken away and been forcibly relocated. Peabody has drained 2.5 million gallons of water daily from the only community water supply and has left a monstrous toxic legacy along an abandoned 273-mile coal slurry pipeline. Furthermore, Peabody has desecrated & completely dug up burials, sacred areas, and shrines designated specifically for offerings, preventing religious practices. The continued mining by Peabody has devastating environmental and cultural impacts on local communities and significantly exacerbates global climate chaos.

Relocation laws have made it nearly impossible for younger generations to continue living on their homelands. Institutional racism has fueled neglect and abandonment of public services such as water, maintenance of roads, health care, and schools. Many of the residents in the regions of Black Mesa that we’ll be visiting are elderly and winters can be extremely rough on them in this remote high desert terrain. Due to lack of local job opportunities and federal strangulation on Indian self-sufficiency, extended families are forced to live many miles away to earn incomes and have all the social amenities (which include choices in mandatory American education).

It is increasingly difficult for families to come back to visit their relatives in these remote areas due to the unmaintained roads and the rising cost of transportation. As one of their resistance strategies they call upon outside support as they maintain their traditional way of life in the face of the largest relocation of indigenous people in the US since the Trail of Tears.

Drawing on the inspiration of the elders & families of Black Mesa, they offer us a transformative model for the strategic, visionary change that is needed to re-harmonize our relationships with one another and with the planet. But too often Black Mesa becomes invisibilized as other human rights, environmental justice and climate justice struggles are showcased and highlighted in both the mainstream & progressive media.The truth is that all of these struggles are interconnected and central to our collective survival is the need to increase the visibility of struggles such as Black Mesa, a decades-long indigenous-led resistance to the fossil fuel industry, in related movements for human rights, environmental, climate & social justice.

May we stand strong with the elders & families of Black Mesa in their declaration that “Coal is the Mother Earth’s liver” and join them in action to ensure that coal remains in the ground! Families of Black Mesa are determined to repair and end the devastating impacts of colonialism, coal mining, and forced relocation of their communities, sacred lands, and our planet. False solutions to climate change and large scale coal extraction must be stopped!

Forging links between people grounded in movements based on social and ecological justice and the Black Mesa resisters (who are also grounded in these movements) is essential to address the disproportionate problems of poverty and disenfranchisement to achieve social, environmental, & climate justice.

 

On-Going Resistance To The Continued Desecration Of The Sacred San Francisco Peaks:

The struggle to protect the San Francisco Peaks is part of an international movement to protect sacred sites and is intricately connected with the struggle to protect the sacred places of Big Mountain & Black Mesa, AZ. The San Francisco Peaks has considerable religious significance to thirteen local Indigenous nations (including the Havasupai, Dine’ {Navajo}, Hopi, and Zuni.) In particular, it forms the Dine’ sacred mountain of the west, called the Dook’o’oosłííd.

In recent months the San Francisco Peaks has been desecrated by Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort with permission from the US Forest Service by cutting 40 acres of pristine forest and laying miles of pipeline to spray artificial snow made of sewage water that would be bought from the City of Flagstaff. In response, there has been a convergence on the peaks to protect what has yet to be desecrated and create a long term form of protection for the Mountain including demonstrations, encampments, multiple lockdowns, further litigation, and tribes filing a human rights complaint with the United Nations.

If you’re visiting Black Mesa, then you will be likely be traveling through the vicinity of the holy San Francisco Peaks which is located just outside of Flagstaff, AZ. Stay posted for updates & how you can support the protection of the Peaks at http://www.truesnow.org and http://www.indigenousaction.org

 

Support the Action in Stopping the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) “States & Nation Policy Summit” in Scottsdale, AZ; Nov 30 – Dec 2, 2011:

ALEC- a conglomerate of legislators and corporate sponsors is planning to meet for their “States and Nation Policy Summit” just outside of Phoenix, AZ (Scottsdale) from November 30-December 2, 2011 . “The group’s membership includes both state lawmakers and corporate executives who gather behind closed doors to discuss and vote on draft legislation. ALEC has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months for its role in crafting bills to attack worker rights, to roll back environmental regulations, privatize education, deregulate major industries, and pass voter ID laws”.** Arizona politicians and the private prison industry, under ALEC, finalized the model legislation which became SB 1070, the harshest anti- immigrant measure in the country and a license for racial profiling.

Thanks to ALEC, at least a dozen states have recently adopted a nearly identical resolution asking Congress to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop regulating carbon emissions (which they recently did): http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/7/smog_v_jobs_is_obama_admin”.

A Peabody Energy representative is on the Corporate Board of ALEC. Kelly Mader, the Vice President of State Government Affairs at Peabody was given ALEC’s 2011 Private Sector Member of the Year Award. In these closed door ALEC meetings, it is no wonder that corporations such as Peabody serve state legislators their agendas on legislation which directly benefit their bottom line. Mader is due to attend the ALEC meeting in Phoenix.

Families of Black Mesa may need supporters to watch over their home and animals so that they can attend the ALEC demonstrations. Please contact BMIS if you can help with this as well as additional logistics such as funds, transportation, and lodging. Thank you!

The struggles on Big Mountain are directly connected to the struggles on the San Francisco Peaks and the movement to stop ALEC. Stay tuned for possible actions and protests in support of struggles to protect ancestral homelands & sacred sites, to stop corporate profiteering off the exploitation, suffering and degradation of us all -particularly indigenous peoples, migrants, the working class, prisoners, and essentially all of Mother Earth.

“Arizona Says NO to Criminalization, Incarceration, & Corporate Profiteering at the Expense of Our Communities” http://azresistsalec.wordpress.com/ *
For additional info on ALEC: http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed


Ways you can support:

  • Host or attend regional organizational meetings in your area: We strongly urge participants to attend or organize regional meetings. Due to the large number of caravan participants in past years, we are limiting the number to just under 100 this fall. Please register early and plan on attending meetings held in your region. There you’ll engage in political education work and help regional coordinators plan logistics, fundraisers, and collect donated food and supplies ahead of time.
  • Trucks, chainsaws, & supplies are integral to the success of the caravan. The more trucks we have, the more wood, water and other heavy loads we can transport. Axes, mauls, axe handles, shovels, tools of all kinds, organic food, warm blankets, and did we mention trucks? — either to donate to families or to use for the week of the caravan–are greatly needed on the land to make this caravan work! We’ve got a 501-C3 tax-deductible number, so if you need that contact us. Please keep checking the BMIS website for an ongoing list of specific requestsby Black Mesa residents.
  • Challenge Colonialism! One of our main organizing goal’s is to highlight anti-colonial education within all the regional meetings leading up to the caravan. In addition to the Cultural Sensitivity Guide, we encourage you to bring articles, films, and other resources to your regional meetings & host discussions that further our collective understanding for transforming colonialism, white supremacy, genocide, & all intersections of oppression. We have started a resources list, which is now on the website.  Feel free to share with us any resources that you like so that we can build upon this list & strengthen our growing support network! In addition please check out our Points Of Unity.
  • Fundraise! Fundraise! Fundraise! As a grassroots, all-volunteer network, we do not receive nor rely on any institutional funding for these support efforts, but instead count on each person’s ingenuity, creativity, and hard work to make it all come together. We are hoping to raise enough money through our community connections for gas, specifically for collecting wood and food for host families, and for work projects.   Host events, hit up non-profits, generous food vendors, and folks in your own networks. An article that we want to highlight is ‘8 Ways to Raise $2,500 in 10 Days’. Check our website soon for our this document, fundraising guidelines, a donation solicitation template letter, and more. You can Donate here: https://supportblackmesa.org/donate/
  • Stay with a family any time of the year: Families living in resistance to coal mining and relocation laws are requesting self-sufficient guests who are willing to give three or more weeks of their time, especially in the winter. Contact BMIS in advance so that we can make arrangements prior to your stay, to answer any questions that you may have, and so we can help put you in touch with a family. It is of the utmost importance that each guest understands and respects the ways of the communities that we will be visiting. Prior to visiting Black Mesa, all guests must read and sign the Cultural Sensitivity & Preparedness Guide: https://supportblackmesa.org/tag/cultural-sensitivity/

Give back to the Earth! Give to future generations!

May the resistance of Big Mountain and surrounding communities on Black Mesa always be remembered, and supported!

With love,
Black Mesa Indigenous Support

Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is a grassroots, all-volunteer collective committed to supporting the indigenous peoples of Black Mesa in their resistance to massive coal mining operations and to the forced relocation policies of the US government. We see ourselves as a part of a people powered uprising for a healthy planet liberated from fossil fuel extraction, exploitative economies, racism, and oppression for our generation and generations to come. BMIS stands with the elders of Black Mesa in their declaration that “Coal is the Mother Earth’s liver” and joins them in action to ensure that coal remains in the ground.

Address: P.O. Box 23501, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002
Voice Mail: 928.773.8086
Email: blackmesais@gmail.com
Web: www.supportblackmesa.org
Facebook: Black Mesa Indigenous Support

 

*Black Mesa Water Coalition
**Democracy Now!






Collective Liberation: Lessons Learned in Allyship with Indigenous Resistance at Black Mesa


Cross Posted from Left Turn Magazine

One of the signs that mark the slurry pipeline in Black Mesa, Arizona. The pipeline had carried coal from the Black Mesa Mine to the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada. Both the mine and the powerplant have since closed. Photo: Jonathon LeFaive

 

By: Liza Minno Bloom, Hallie Boas, and Berkley Carnine
The stories of the traditional Dineh people of Black Mesa, the land surrounding the sacred peaks of Big Mountain, tell us that coal is the liver of Mother Earth. Black Mesa is a rural area of the Navajo reservation in Northeastern Arizona, where for more than 30 years, Dineh (Navajo) have lived in resistance there, steadfastly refusing to relocate as strip mines rip apart their ancestral homelands and coal-generating plants poison the desert air.

Public Law (PL) 93-531, written by Barry Goldwater and Pat Fannin and commonly known as the “Relocation Law,” was signed into law by Gerald Ford in 1974. The statute made 900,000 acres of Navajo-Hopi shared land exclusive Hopi territory, or Hopi Partitioned Lands (HPL), despite the fact that very few Hopi lived there. With this, the Department of Justice began the massive relocation of Dineh, and Peabody Energy Corporation began constructing the two largest strip mines in the western US, one of which is operating today. The effects of the relocation meet all the criteria of the UN’s internationally recognized definition of cultural genocide.

The media has misrepresented this corporate land grab as a “Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute.”

“It is a major human rights violation, they way they pitted the Hopi and Dineh against each other over this issue,” says NaBahe Katenay Keediniihii (Dineh), who was born on the HPL. “For generations,” he continues, “they co-existed peacefully despite the fact that they were different tribes with different languages, ceremonies, and traditions.”

More than 14,000 Dineh and over 100 Hopi have been relocated from the land surrounding the sacred peaks of Big Mountain to make way for Peabody’s mines. This constitutes the largest forced relocation of indigenous peoples in the US since the Trail of Tears in 1883. In the 1970s and 1980s, resistance communities armed themselves against law enforcement officers and cut the government-erected barbed wire fences demarking the sacred places they were no longer allowed to visit. Of this, elder matriarch Pauline Whitesinger said, “They drew a line around us. I was told to move out by the government. I do not wish to leave, so I am staying here.”

The relocation has a profoundly complicated history, much of which the authors of this piece are not capable of describing, as it is not our struggle. Currently, most families live in traditional hogans on large homesteads peppered by scrubby juniper and pine trees throughout which they herd their livestock. Sheep comprise the lifeblood of traditional Dineh communities. Now, as a result of 30 years of coal slurry operations that have required millions of gallons of water a day to function, the Navajo Aquifer, which runs under Black Mesa and supplies water for crops, people, and animals, is all but drained.

From its 30 years of disastrous operation, Peabody’s 103-square-mile Black Mesa mine left a toxic legacy along an abandoned coal slurry pipeline 273 miles long, the source of an estimated 325 million tons of climate pollution discharged into the atmosphere.  According to Peabody, the operating Kayenta Mine continues to extract eight million tons of low-sulfur coal annually and supplies the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Arizona.

These days, the Dineh families and elders who remain on the HPL face regular harassment and impoundment of livestock.  Elder matriarch resister Mae Tso said recently, “Under the relocation laws we can only have a certain amount of sheep. They may extend [impoundments] to twice a year. It seems the Navajo and Hopi leadership have come together to push more people off of the HPL.”

Movement building and allyship

Formed in 1998, Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is committed to decolonial solidarity work with the Dineh communities, who are resisting this ongoing forced relocation by the US government. We are an all-volunteer, grassroots collective comprised of antiracist white organizers, the majority of whom are female-identified; we are involved as herbalists, parents, farmers, teachers, artists, and climate justice organizers. We see our role in working with other white allies as being particularly important because we believe, as the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond phrases it, “Racism is the single most critical barrier to building effective coalitions for social change.”

Indigenous peoples’ resistance, history and perspective on land, sovereignty, and the nation-state comprise the nexus of our work. We seek to be a part of countering the myth of the “disappearing native,” while supporting active and resilient indigenous-led resistance movements and engaging in our own decolonization and healing processes.

Since the relocation began, and before BMIS existed, support has taken various forms: American Indian Movement resistance camps, weavers for justice, and organizing speaking tours around the country for elders, including visits to the UN. Over the years, people who have supported the struggle on Black Mesa have come to understand the fundamental interconnectedness of hierarchy and oppression, as well as varying relationships to power and privilege. The supporter network is now multigenerational and weaves together other efforts towards social and environmental justice.

As we develop as a collective, BMIS is increasingly focusing on movement and coalition building. In working to get supporters to the land to learn directly from the traditional ways and resistance of the community, we are also building a regional coordinator network of allies organizing year-round support of Black Mesa in their home communities.

Climate connections

At the United Nations COP-16 climate talks in Cancún in December 2010 it became clear that increasingly secured borders between the Global North and the Global South, between rich and poor, will ensure corporate access to remaining natural resources. Resisters from Black Mesa and others from frontline communities demanded the root causes of climate change be addressed, calling for the implementation of the rights of Mother Earth. The UN silenced them, while refusing to make real commitments to stop emissions at the source and keep fossil fuels in the ground.

The communities and lands most impacted by climate change have been plagued with the externalities of unfettered natural resource extraction fueling free-market capitalism: higher rates of cancer, respiratory diseases, and landbases and cultures rendered “sacrifices,” as is the case with Black Mesa. Today around Black Mesa, there are unified efforts between Dineh and Hopi against resource extraction and for green jobs. BMIS seeks to support local communities’ transitions off dirty energy and support green jobs for people who’ve been most impacted by dirty energy and climate pollution—disproportionally people of color and indigenous peoples.

The BMIS support network also connects with indigenous-led movements regionally and is part of the growing resilience movement for protecting sacred places: the Save the Peaks campaign in Flagstaff, Arizona that is organizing to preserve the San Francisco Peaks (www.savethepeaks.org) a sacred altar to indigenous peoples, including the Dineh; and the campaign to protect Segora Te (Glen Cove) (www.protectglencove.org) in California, among others.

As the regional support network grows, the importance of building an analysis of cultural and spiritual appropriation, and accountable representation for non-indigenous supporters becomes integral to our organizing. We work to foster committed allyship in movements led by people most impacted by colonialism, racism, and ecological destruction—in this case, the resisting elders of Black Mesa.

We hope that our access to resources can provide some background and open up a space for voices from the resistance communities to be amplified and published more regularly. We’ve learned that locating ourselves within the struggle does not mean making ourselves invisibile or acting from a place of guilt and shame, but acknowledging our unique abilities and positions as opportunities and deep yearnings to connect as a way to fully embody our collective liberation.

Liza Minno Bloom, Hallie Boas, and Berkley Carnine are collective members with Black Mesa Indigenous Support. For BMIS’s points of unity, more extensive background and news, our recently updated cultural sensitivity and preparedness training guide for movement builders, as well as ways to get involved, please visit www.supportblackmesa.org.






BMIS Points of Unity


These principles reflect what we believe to be truly important aspects of our work.

We’ve adapted the following from SmartMeme:
In all of our efforts to collaborate for change, we value relationships, and approach our work with respect for all people and all life on Earth. We strive in both our perspectives and practices, to challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, and oppression in all its forms.

We challenge power structures at all levels. We are committed to becoming better allies by helping to develop accountable leadership and build broad-based movements for environmental, social, and economic justice.

We intend this to be living document and an evolving guide for Black Mesa Indigenous Supports practices, strategy, and vision. We commit to embracing the following principles:

Holistic Analysis:  Social, economic and ecological issues are interconnected and interdependent.  We believe in “supporting Native communities to protect the Earth we all share” so eloquently stated by Honor The Earth.  The problems are interrelated, and so are the solutions.

Analyzing Power: Through the analysis of institutional power, we identify and unpack the systems of oppression, and analyze the narratives that help to legitimize and hold these institutions in place. We bring power analysis as a lens to all of our work.

Undoing Racism: Racism is the single most critical barrier to building effective coalitions for social change. We commit to create and promote an anti-racist culture in our organization, and practice anti-racism in our personal and political work.

Listening: We take responsibility for making space for all voices in the Black Mesa community, the support group and larger network.  We prioritize listening to the front-line communities of Black Mesa who are impacted by coal mining & forced relocation. We listen to the experiences, stories, and histories, as told by them. We also prioritize listening to elders, youth, women, queer folks, and people of color.  We strive to listen to what people are saying or by what they’re not saying.

Appreciation and Gratitude: for the whole of each other’s personhood. We will respect and nurture each other’s culture, class, gender, orientation, racial, and religious differences. We will be sensitive to each other’s family situations. We will resist arrogance. We will be willing to share our weaknesses. We will call each other out, and also celebrate each other often.

Acting: consciously and consistently to challenge historic patterns of marginalization
and oppression including racism, sexism, homophobia and discrimination in all its forms.
We are committed to being a visible ally.  We are committed to action and taking public positions on oppression.  We will help build a multi-racial, anti-racist movement.

Leadership: To organize with integrity requires that we be accountable to the communities struggling with oppression, and develop accountable leadership and relationships.

Networking: The growth of an effective broad-based movement for social transformation requires networking or “building a net that works.” As the movement develops a strong net, people are less likely to fall through. Black Mesa Indigenous Support nurtures our network and acts as a connector across the issues and communities we serve.

We, the collective volunteers & greater network of BMIS commit ourselves to working together to embody the above-stated principles. If you share these principles, we invite you to join us in fulfilling them.

 

We also agree with Honor The Earth’s statement:
“We believe a sustainable world is predicated on transforming economic, social, and political relationships that have been based on systems of conquest toward systems based on just relationships with each other and with the natural world. ….we are committed to restoring a paradigm that recognizes our collective humanity and our joint dependence on the Earth”.

 

BMIS has adopted the following principles from Unsettling America, (which in turn was adapted from Unsettling MN)

  • As settlers and non-native people (by which we mean non-indigenous to this hemisphere) acting in solidarity, it is our responsibility to proactively challenge and dismantle colonialist thought and behavior in the communities we identify ourselves to be part of. As people within communities that maintain and benefit from colonization, we are intimately positioned to do this work.
  • We understand that allies cannot be self-defined; they must be claimed by the people they seek to ally with. We organize our solidarity efforts around direct communication, responsiveness, and accountability to indigenous people fighting for decolonization and liberation.
  • We are committed to dismantling all systems of oppression, whether they are found in institutional power structures, interpersonal relationships, or within ourselves. Individually and as a collective, we work compassionately to support each other through these processes. Participation in struggle requires each of us to engage in both solidarity and our own liberation: to be accountable for all privileges carried, while also struggling for liberation from internalized and/or experienced oppression. We seek to build a healthy culture of resistance, accountability, and sustenance.

 

We have also adopted Setting The Record Straight’s Points of Unity:

  • We recognize that “race” is a false construct, arbitrarily created by Europeans to establish and maintain privilege and power. “Whiteness” was invented for similar reasons and serves as “North” on the illegitimate “compass” of race by creating hierarchies of language, skin tone, religious practice, and culture. We seek to deconstruct these oppressive paradigms and take part in the effort already established to build and resurrect models of human interaction based on cooperation and the value inherent in our various traditions and cultures.
  • We recognize and respect the inherent autonomy and self-determination of indigenous groups. We define autonomy as the capacity of communities to survive and thrive without interference or threat of violence from outside forces. We see self-determination as the power of a community to define its own fate and course of action.
  • We seek an immediate end to all genocidal policies and activities. We oppose the full range of genocidal actions, including things like cultural appropriation, which are often mistakenly thought of as non-genocidal because they don’t necessarily entail direct physical violence.
  • We seek to help create relationships of true and lasting justice between indigenous and non-indigenous communities. We believe that those who benefit from the occupation of indigenous territories have a responsibility to put effort into helping build these fundamentally just relationships. If necessary, non-indigenous communities should make themselves available to indigenous groups as a source of aid and support. Because everyone ultimately stands to gain from this process, we promote mutual empowerment, not charity.
  • We support and respect a diversity of tactics and efforts made by colonized groups to resist oppression and/or reclaim complete autonomy. However, we may not condone all methods used, or choose to utilize certain methods ourselves.
  • We will actively fight all oppression in ourselves, our collective and events, in liberatory movements, and outside the movement. We hold that all systems of oppression are linked, and that no movement for liberation can succeed while replicating/maintaining any oppression. We will not tolerate any form of oppression. Some systemic oppressions include racism, sexism, transphobia, and ablism.

 

And last but not least!:

  • All Indigenous Peoples in the occupied lands known as the United States have the right to self-determination and access to clean and safe land-bases.
  • Representation: BMIS and the regional network agree to not act as a representative of or speak on behalf of the struggle. We agree to only speak for ourselves.





Statement from 6 Protesters Arrested for Stopping Snowbowl Pipeline


The struggle to protect the San Francisco Peaks is intricately connected with protecting the sacred places of Big Mountain & Black Mesa, AZ.  Located just outside of Flagstaff, AZ the San Francisco Peaks has considerable religious significance to thirteen local Indigenous nations (including the Havasupai, Dine’ (Navajo), Hopi, and Zuni.) In particular, it forms the Dine’ sacred mountain of the west, called the Dook’o’oosłííd.
Here is a video that we recently discovered which also explains the significance of the Peaks to the Dine’: http://intercontinentalcry.org/dookooosliid-what-the-san-francisco-peaks-means-to-the-dine/

 

http://www.indigenousaction.org/statement-from-6-protesters-arrested-for-stopping-snowbowl-pipeline/

Photos: http://www.indigenousaction.org/photos-protest-halts-snowbowl-pipeline-construction/

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sunday June 19, 2011

Contact: Beth Lavely
Tel: 928.254.1064
protectpeaks@gmail.com

Protest Halts Snowbowl Wastewater Pipeline Construction

End Destruction and Desecration of Holy San Francisco Peaks

Flagstaff, AZ – At sunrise on Thursday, June 16, 2011, more than a dozen people stopped ski area construction on the Holy San Francisco Peaks.  Six individuals used various devices to lock themselves to heavy machinery and to each other inside the waste water pipeline trench.

Kristopher Barney, Dine’ (Navajo) & one of the six who locked himself to an excavator stated, “This is a continuation of years of prayers and resistance. It is our hope that all Indigenous Peoples, and all others,  throughout the North, East, South and West come together to offer support to the San Francisco Peaks and help put a stop to Snowbowl’s plan to further destroy and desecrate such a sacred, beautiful and pristine mountain!”

“What part of sacred don’t they understand? Through our actions today, we say enough! The destruction and desecration has to end!” said Marlena Teresa Garcia, 16, a young Diné woman and one of the six who chose to lock down. “The Holy San Francisco Peaks is home, tradition, culture, and a sanctuary to me, and all this is being desecrated by the Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort.  So now I, as a young Diné woman, stand by Dook’o’osliid’s side taking action to stop cultural genocide.  I encourage all indigenous youth to stand against the desecration that is happening on the Holy San Francisco Peaks and all other sacred sites”, said Garcia after being arrested and released.

A banner was hung on the side of the trench that read “Defend the Sacred!” where two protesters were locked together.  Over the half mile of open construction, the group chanted, “Protect Sacred Sites, Defend Human Rights!”, “No desecration for recreation!” “Stop the cultural genocide!  Protect the Peaks!”, and “Human health over corporate wealth”.

“This waste water pipeline will poison the environment and to children who may eat snow made from it.  Snowbowl plans to spray millions of gallons of waste water snow, which is filled with cancer causing and other harmful contaminants, as well as clear-cut over 30,000 trees. The Peaks are a pristine and beautiful place, a fragile ecosystem, and home to rare and endangered species of plants and animals,” said Evan Hawbaker, one of the protesters who locked themselves to the excavator.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service, the City of Flagstaff Mayor and Council, and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality are all responsible for permitting Snowbowl to endanger public health, destroy the environment, and desecrate the Holy Peaks,” said Nadia del Callejo, one of the protesters who locked themselves in the trench.
“Throughout history, acts of resistance and civil disobedience have been taken by young and old against injustices such as this.  This action is not isolated but part of a continued resistance to human rights violations, to colonialism, to corporate greed, and destruction of Mother Earth,” added Del Callejo.

A separate group of supporters, some wearing hazmat suits, “quarantined” the entrance to Snowbowl Road. Banners were stretched across the road that read “Protect Sacred Sites” and “Danger! Health Hazard – Snowbowl”.

Shortly after initiating the action, a Snowbowl security guard spotted two people locked to an excavator.  By 6:00 a.m. more than 15 armed agents, including the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department, City of Flagstaff Police, & the FBI stormed the mountain.
At approximately 7:30 a.m., the Flagstaff Fire Department, assisted by County Sheriffs, started aggressively cutting two people from the excavator.

“We took every possible measure to ensure our safety.  Our actions were taken to safeguard Indigenous Peoples’ cultural survival, our community’s health and this sensitive mountain ecosystem.  Those who cut us out endangered our well being ignoring the screams to stop.  They treated our bodies the way they’re treating this holy mountain. If they had their way, we wouldn’t even exist.  There is more danger in doing nothing. To idly stand by and allow this destruction and desecration is to allow cultural genocide”, said the other young Dine’ woman who chose to lock down.

“The police’s use of excessive force was in complete disregard for my safety.  They pulled at my arms and forced my body and head further into the machine, all the while using heavy duty power saws within inches of my hand,” said Evan Hawbaker.

After being cut out, the two were treated by paramedics and arrested for trespassing. The police, firefighters, and paramedics then proceeded to cut two people locked in a nearby trench.Extraction took about forty minutes and the two were immediately seen by paramedics after being unlocked.  One of the individuals sustained injuries to their arm from abusive force.  Both were charged with trespassing, with an added charge of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor”, for one of the individuals.  Police proceeded to unlock the last group who was also inside the trench nearby.

“Our only offense was resistance; resistance of the implications that’s Snowbowl’s development exudes. The police’s defense was to implement tactics of fear to reach a goal, essentially to continue construction as soon as possible. Our safety was prioritized second to Snowbowl’s demands.  I was one of the demonstrators in the trench, locked at the neck with a partner. I was not aggressive. My lock was sawed through, inches away from both of our heads, secured solely and recklessly by the hands of a deputy. During the process, we were repeatedly asked to chant to reaffirm our consciousness. The police’s response was hasty, taking about ten minutes in total–it was dehumanizing,” said Hailey Sherwood, one of the last protester to be cut out.

Both women were also seen by paramedics.  One was sent to the hospital for heat exhaustion although she denied feeling dehydrated.  She started to faint during the extraction when police, EMTs, and firefighters attempted to force the pair to stand and move them from their location.  Both women repeatedly expressed that they were being hurt and choked by law enforcement officers and firefighters.  Both of the protesters were arrested for trespassing, with additional charges to one of them for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” and “endangerment”.Four of the protesters were taken to County Jail.  The two young people were taken to Coconino County Juvenile Detention Center.  FBI agents attempted to question four of those arrested.As word spread about the demonstration to protect the Peaks, overwhelming support and solidarity poured in from throughout the community and internationally.
Bail was raised shortly after the arrests.  All demonstrators were released by 3:30 p.m.  Three of the protesters, including Marlena Teresa Garcia, immediately filed a report for excessive use of force after being released.

“How can we be trespassers on our Holy Site?” questioned Barney. “I do not agree with these and the other charges, we will continue our resistance.”

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