#SanCarlosApache Tribe welcomes Federal Court ruling delaying trade of sacred Oak Flat to Chinese-backed #ResolutionCopper

By San Carlos Apache Tribe, Censored News, June 9, 2025

#SanCarlosApacheNation, #Arizona — "The San Carlos Apache Tribe welcomes Friday’s federal court ruling preventing the Trump Administration from trading sacred Oak Flat to Chinese-backed Resolution #CopperMining no sooner than 60 days after the government releases an environmental report expected to be published later this month.

"The #Trump Administration had indicated that it intended to trade 2,422 acres of #TontoNationalForest 70 miles east of #PhoenixAZ that includes Oak Flat to Resolution Copper immediately upon publication of the mine’s updated environmental report.

U.S. District Court Judge Dominic W. Lanza’s order 'preclude(s) the United States Forest Service from proceeding with the challenged land exchange until 60 days after the issuance of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, which is anticipated to be issued on June 16.'

" 'We are grateful that Judge Lanza has provided us an opportunity to be heard,' said San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler. 'The two-month window provides the Tribe an opportunity to file an amended lawsuit challenging the legality of the pending environmental report and request an injunction to stop the land exchange until the merits of our case are settled.'

"The Oak Flat land transfer was mandated by a last-minute amendment to the FY2015 #NationalDefenseAuthorizationAct that was added by the late Arizona Senator #JohnMcCain and former Arizona Senator #JeffFlake. The land transfer provision, which failed to pass Congress in previous years, avoided the normal course of business and was not debated before it was added to the mustsign [#NDAA] defense spending bill that was signed into law by President Barack #Obama.

" 'The bill that authorized the land exchange is not in the best interest of the American people, Arizona or the San Carlos Apache Tribe,' Chairman Rambler stated. 'We have filed this lawsuit because of our concerns of the mine’s massive use of groundwater, which will be devastating for both Arizona
and eventually the Tribe. We are also deeply concerned about the environmental destruction and the obliteration of Oak Flat will have on Apache culture and religion.'

"Resolution plans to collapse Oak Flat, known as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel in Apache, into a two-mile wide, 1,100-foot-deep crater. Chi’chil Biłdagoteel is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Place.

"Resolution Copper is owned by Melbourne-based #BHP (45%) and London-based #RioTinto (55%), the two largest mining companies in the world. The Chinese state-owned Aluminum Corporation of China, which spearheads China’s acquisition of strategic minerals worldwide, is Rio Tinto’s single largest investor with a 14.6% stake. Both BHP and Rio Tinto rely on China for the majority of their revenue.

" 'We fully expect Resolution’s copper to be exported to China, which poses a national security threat,' Chairman Rambler said. “The United States already exports 30 percent of the copper produced by U.S. mines because of a lack of copper smelting capacity.

"'The Trump Administration’s Oak Flat appraisal concludes that Resolution’s copper will be exported to southeast Asia,' Chairman Rambler added. 'It’s clearly in the best interest of the United States to withhold publication of the Resolution environmental report at least until there is a change in the ownership of this project to companies that are not reliant on China for more than half their business.' "

Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/06/san-carlos-apache-tribe-federal-court.html

#Fight4OurExistence #ProtectOakFlat #LandBack #sacredland #OakFlat
#SaveOakFlat #SanCarlosApache #Apache #ReligiousLiberty #NativeAmericans #FirstNations #CensoredNews #ReaderSupportedNews
#ProtectTheSacred #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanNews #NativeAmericans #RioTinto #CopperMining #Arizona #LeaveItInTheGround #ChichilBildagoteel #WesternApaches #BecketLaw #ResolutionCopper #USPol #MiningTheSacred #NationalForests #CorporateLandGrabs #CorporateColonialism #CulturalGenocide #McCainShame

She Was A Mountain by #KleeBenally

"Ya'at'eeh,

In honor and support for ongoing resistance to forced relocation on #BlackMesa. This is for the original #matriarchs who would not be moved such as #KatherineSmith, #RobertaBlackgoat, #PaulineWhitesinger, #MaeTso, #AliceBenally, #RuthBenally, and so many more."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIWMun106ek

#Resist #Resistance #RestInPowerKleeBenally #BigMountainResistance #ForcedRelocation #Genocide #McCainShame #FridayNightMusicVideos
#FridayNightMusic
#NativeAmericanMusic
#IndigenousActivists
#DefendTheSacred
#ActivismThroughMusic

So, #WhatMagazineOnine was not only one of the first home-grown webzines, it was also the place where I told the world about #McCainShame and #BigMountain -- and how I connected with the Benally family (including #KleeBenally's grandmother #RobertaBlackgoat) and #BrendaNorrell of #CensoredNews.

Here is a snapshot of my #BigMountainResistance page -- courtesy of the @internetarchive !

https://web.archive.org/web/20060506003525/http://www.whatmagazine.org/bigmtn1.html

#Activism #Dineh #Hopi #JohnMcCain #PeabodyCoal #Resistance

Brought to you by #RioTinto and #McCainShame!

The #ApacheStronghold standing in the way of a massive #CopperMine

‘If they want to remove me, they’re going to have to remove me, forcefully.’

by Brandi Morin May 17, 2024

"Apache Stronghold has been waging their fight against these giants [#RioTinto and #BHP] in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In late April, the court rejected an appeal of a lower court’s ruling from 2021 that found the mine wouldn’t threaten the First Amendment religious practice rights of the #Apache. Now, the group is taking their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Chi’chil Bildagoteel was once protected. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower listed the area on the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property. That designation stood until 2014, when former U.S. Senator #JohnMcCain slipped a rider onto a must-pass National Defense Authorization Act to allow the sale of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper."

Read more:
https://therealnews.com/brandi-morin-the-apache-stronghold-standing-in-the-way-of-a-massive-copper-mine

#NDAA #BigMountain #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #Arizona #ChichilBildagoteel #RioTinto #CopperMine #SanCarlosApache #Arizona #ProtectOakFlat #protectthesacred #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #SCOTUS #SaveOakFlat
#WaterIsLife #SacredSite #CopperMining #RecycleCopper #MiningWithoutConsent
#ProtectTheSacred #CulturalGenocide #Ecocide #NativeAmericanNews
#IndigenousNews
#Greenwashing #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CorporateColonialism

From 2021: #LouiseBenally [#KleeBenally's aunt]

"Peabody Western Coal Company was issued a mining lease for 64,848 acres on the Navajo Nation and the #Navajo-#Hopi Joint Use Area in #BigMountain, AZ.

"Over TEN THOUSAND Navajo and THREE HUNDRED Hopi were relocated from their homes for the mining operation. Fifty years later Peabody has closed the mine leaving behind destruction to the people, land, and water."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WNHeLmBSMY

#BlackMesa #PeabodyCoal #McCainShame #WaterIsLife #USGovernment #HopiNavajoDivision #Relocation #CulturalGenocide #BigMountainResistance

[Transcript] #Powerlands

Story by Jessica Partnow, November 2023

"On this week’s #MakingContact, we bring you a special encore of an episode that first aired in June. We’ll hear an extended interview with #IveyCamilleManybeadsTso, a #queer #Diné filmmaker and director of the award-winning #documentary Powerlands.

"Powerlands traces how #multinational energy #corporations extract resources and profits while displacing and harming #Indigenous communities around the world. The film follows #IndigenousActivists in #NavajoNation, #Colombia, #Mexico and the #Philippines who are fighting back against corporations like #PeabodyEnergy, #Glencore and #BHP."

Powerlands Documentary website:
https://powerlands.org/#&gid=1&pid=1

Interview transcript:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/powerlands/ar-AA1jXelC

#IndigenousActivism #WaterIsLife #Mining #ResourceColonialism #Colonialism #BigMountain #Corporatocracy #CulturalGenocide #BigOilAndGas #BigEnergy #BigUranium #McCainShame

Last night, I had looked for this website that I remember from 2004 (it was not in my current bookmarks). A good night's sleep and a DuckDuckGo search got me the results I was looking for. Page bookmarked now. This page also has links to .wmv files with the documentary "Vanishing Prayer".

2004: #NativeAmericans: #Navajo Indians targeted for brutal genocide, in #Arizona, #USA ...by Sen. #JohnMcCain, the #BIA & a few greedy Politicians

"To facilitate his special interests, namely: Peabody Western Coal Company (the largest coal group in the US) and the Mohave Generating Facility in Laughlin (operated by Bechtel) delivering low cost coal produced electricity to Las Vegas's Casinos in exchange for Beer Distribution Contracts afforded his wife's business, Hemsley Inc., John McCain personally, over the course of 25 years in the state legislature and federal senate introduced and arranged for the enforcement of unethical and constitutionally unlawful legislations which brutally displaced thousands of Navajo farmers onto a #Nuclear Waste Dump, Church's Rock, #NewMexico to live after brutalizing them for two decades in peaceful resistance. McCain assembled support to modify existing laws and produce new ones (Navajo Resettlement & Navajo Accommodation Agreement, Navajo Settlement, and amendments to PL 93-531, PL S.1003), illegal and unethical enactments designed to force Native American Navajo of the Dineh Band off their Arizona lands, moving them onto Church's Hill in New Mexico, depriving them of lands they've owned since 1500 AD. As a result, thousands of aboriginal elders passed away from shock associated with displacement into urban apartment settings and on to uranium contaminated waste sites such as Church's.

"Using a phony #Hopi tribal counsel composed of paid stooges, and Rangers comprised largely of BIA police, McCain and Peabody Western Coal Company progressively stole and exploited the Dineh's lands for mutual personal gain, brutalizing the natives, terrorizing #elders and engaging in thuggery, forcing these peaceful people to leave 'or else'. They even bulldozed their sacred sites and sweat lodges, beating their members physically and abusing their elders to the point of terrorizing them and causing health failure and heart failures and worse. Fake Hopi Rangers (BIA Police) organized by McCain allies arrested and beat any peaceful resistors on their own lands and while celebrating holy days at their sacred sites. Three Presidential runs by McCain have been backed by the Mining, Power company and its Nevada Casino clients through street names organized in Nevada. McCain's wife has been granted huge Beer distribution contracts at her liquor company, Hemsley, by Nevada gaming interests. Two faced political favor banking has robbed the Dineh of any political support. The supposed 'new lands' at Church's Hill are a #Superfund Nuclear Waste Dump landfill site where children in schoolyards play among openly dumped uranium tailings! Children born in these communities have twice the national average of birth defects!"

#EnvironmentalRacism #PeabodyCoal #McCainShame #NativeAmericans #ThackerPass
Read more: http://www.acsa.net/cain2004.org/