Native Americans protest lithium mine on sacred soil

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- Three Native American tribes in the western United States are up in arms against a disputed mining venture being implemented by Lithium Americas Corporations, which was fast-tracked by the previous U.S. administration without proper consultation with the local tribes.

TRIBES UNITED AGAINST MINE

The Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada filed a motion on Friday seeking to join the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, also in Nevada, and the Burns Paiute Tribe in Oregon to litigate against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the mining company on the grounds that the government had failed to consult with the tribes as legally required and the proposed lithium mine near Nevada-Oregon border would despoil sacred sites that are culturally significant to them.

"To build that Thacker Pass lithium mine on lands held sacred to Colony members would be like raping the earth and their culture," said Judy Rojo, chair of the Winnemucca Indian Colony, in a court filing.

The land in question is the site of a historically recorded massacre of 31-70 tribe members in 1865 by federal soldiers, which is still felt as an open wound by Native Americans, who call the place as "Peehee Mu'huh," meaning "rotten moon" in English.

According to the tribes, Peehee Mu'huh was named so because their ancestors were massacred there while the tribes' hunters were away. When the hunters returned, they found their loved ones murdered, unburied and rotting in a part of the Thacker Pass area shaped like a moon.

The BLM claimed that it did consult with the Winnemucca Indian Colony, while the latter hotly denies the assertion.

"Under BLM's own definition of consultation, BLM never engaged in, or even initiated, consultation with the Colony, whose ancestors traveled through, hunted and gathered in, camped in, and were massacred in Thacker Pass, before issuing the Thacker Pass Record of Decision," which approved the lithium mine in early 2021, the tribe stated in its filing.

COURT DENIED NATIVES' REQUEST

The excavation on sacred native lands was allowed to proceed when a federal judge denied the tribes' request to halt digging temporarily.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du, presiding over the case, commented that when a case is likely to affect cultural or religious sites, the National Historic Preservation Act grants tribes consultation rights but does not give them the rights over the land itself.

However, to Daranda Hinkey, a 23-year-old member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe in northern Nevada, said "tribal culture and religion is directly tied to the land."

"The environmental impacts from the Thacker Pass lithium mine are cultural impacts," Hinkey told This Is Reno, a local news website in Nevada. "Everything from our traditions to our religion to our oral history is tied to the land."

Next steps to block the mining project are being considered, such as appealing the court's decision or taking political actions to occupy the site in protest.

"The fact that our judge denied our injunction potentially means that we are going to have to go down a path of nonviolent direct action," said Hinkey, also the secretary of People of Red Mountain, a group formed by her tribe to oppose the mining project.

TO PRESERVE TRIBES' WAY OF LIFE

Till now, Winnemucca tribal members make a pilgrimage to Thacker Pass each year to perform their important "Sundance" ceremony, a sacred prayer dance lasting for 10 days.

"The ceremony carries the promise of healing through a demanding process of purification, sacrifice and prayer," Rojo told Nevada Current news website last week.

"The Sundance is a way of life for our members, a way of reaching through seven generations back and forward for betterment," she wrote in the filing, contending that mining, pollution and industrial development on their sacred land would harm their way of life, as lithium mines have done to indigenous communities in South America.

Other groups argued that the proposed Thacker Pass mine could also potentially destroy many habitats for local flora and fauna species and give off carbon emissions on a massive scale that would accelerate biodiversity loss, particularly for the most vulnerable species.

The negative impacts on the climate, environment and community have also led American farmers and ranchers to oppose the lithium mine, who believe the mine will harm their local communities.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland "keep paying lip service to tribal rights and respect for Native Americans," said Will Falk, attorney for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and co-founder of Protect Thacker Pass, a grassroots collective resisting the Thacker Pass Lithium.

"Well, now three federally recognized tribes are saying that BLM Winnemucca did not respect tribal rights. It's time that BLM halts this project so the tribes can be heard," he told the Last Real Indian, an independent news group supporting Indians' rights.