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Black Mesa Indigenous Support
PO Box 93501 Flagstaff, AZ 86002
blackmesais@gmail.com
Spring/Summer 2012 Newsletter
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 Thank you for Donations for Impoundments
We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who donated, called to express concern to the responsible parties, and stayed on the land for long-term sheep-herding this winter in response to livestock impoundments on the Hopi Partitioned Lands.
We are strategizing multiple ways to take preventative measures to avoid emergency impoundments. Please contact us with any ideas you may have specifically related to impoundment prevention.
UN Testimonies
In late April 2012, BMIS helped raise funds for three elders, two second-generation resisters, and their family members from the HPL to travel to Tucson testify in front of the United Nations Rapporteur on Indigenous Issues, James Ayana. Their testimonies included statements about the violence of the relocation law (PL 93-531), the horrors of harassment and livestock impoundment, the effects of Peabody’s dirty coal mines on their ancestral homelands, and the devastating potential of the Water Resettlement (S2109), as well as the importance of livestock, sacred sites on Black Mesa, and traditional weaving. Many thanks to those of you who donated to the travel expenses, attended the testimony, or offered up housing for those travelling. We will have recordings of the testimonies on our Website soon.
Youth Gathering on Black Mesa
This year, BMIS is working to bring more visibility and support to the amazing efforts led by community members to involve Dineh youth in a projects which connect them to elders, to their language, culture, lifeways, spiritual practices and legacies of resistance. We’re working to expand our network and come up with more creative ways to support these efforts and welcome ideas, new contacts, and stories and models from gatherings such as the survival camps. Thanks to everyone who has supported and will continue to do so.
On memorial day weekend, BMIS helped fundraise to support six Dineh youth to come out to Black Mesa/Big Mountain and spend time with elders, herd sheep, shear sheep, and chop wood, among other projects.
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 Human Rights March
On April 29th, almost 200 people marched in the streets of Flagstaff to demand justice and demonstrate the unity that exists amongst the people of Dinetah/Arizona. Local organizers from Táala Hooghan Infoshop and all over Arizona came to stand up for human rights in this unifying rally. Many issues were showcased: the continued repression of the Big Mountain/Black Mesa resisters, the degradation of the San Francisco Peaks and the continued movement to stop the desecration, SB1070 and unjust immigration laws, Transgendered and Two Spirit rights, the militarization of the AZ borders, and racist public school policies.
Initial Victory Against S2109
Dine Water Care, a coalition of Indigenous organizations, organized meetings, attended hearings, generated and passed around petitions, held protests, raised awareness and generated enough outcry to prevent Kyl and McCain from forcing through a settlement that would have meant signing away water rights and guarenteeing NGS access to water to continue its operations. The Navajo Tribal Council voted the bill overwhelmingly on July 5 to reject the settlement agreement and Senate Bill 2109, introduced by U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, and its companion bill, H.R. 4067.
Big Mountain community members did outreach to their communities to seek their guidance on these issues. BMIS helped fund a van to get community members from Big Mountain and Black Mesa to the council meeting. Along with community members from the rest of the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, Black Mesa residents echoed the call, “Water is sacred. Water is life.”
Currently, organizers have made gains getting activists, academics, tradtional elders and other experts elected to a newly created water task force. Dine’ Water Rights along with affiliated organizations Dine’ Care, To’ Nizhoni Ani’, Black Mesa Water Coalition, Council Advocating an Indigenous Manifesto, ECHOES, and other community members responsible for defeating the bill, call for continued work to uphold aboriginal water rights.Visit www.dinewaterrights.org for further details.
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Protect the Peaks Teach In
A teach-in to address protection of the San Francisco Peaks will be held on Saturday, August 18, 2012 at the Native American Cultural Center on Flagstaf's Northern Arizona University's campus.The teach-in will feature panel discussions, workshops, and small group sessions addressing topics such as: Sacred Sites, Environmental Justice, Legal Cases, Water Issues, Legislative Action, Civil Disobedience, & more. "This event is an important opportunity for community members, students, & activists to learn and share information about the ongoing environmental & social justice struggles to protect the sacred San Francisco Peaks and how to get more involved." said Daryl Marks (Dine'), an organizer of the teach-in and volunteer with Protectthepeaks.org.
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BMIS Collective Updates
Of the BMIS collective, Derek, Berkley, and Liza recently moved to Flagstaff to be closer to Black Mesa and to build closer relationships with the supporter community and HPL residents.
BMIS is working with other networks of climate and environmental justice and anti-racist allies to incorporate issues of decolonization into conversations about sustaining movements for justice for the long haul. In that vein, members of BMIS attended a training hosted by the San Francisco-based Catalyst Project, a center for political education and movement building in Phoenix and will attend an anti-racist organizing training hosted by Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) in Baltimore in November.
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Updates Continued
We’d like to welcome our newest member, Hallie Boas to the BMIS collective. Hallie is of eastern European and Spanish/Portuguese Jewish descent from the New York City area and is moving to Austin, Texas in the fall for graduate school. For the past five years, she coordinated Global Justice Ecology Project’s (GJEP) New Voices on Climate Change initiative, which underscored and amplified the voices of the Indigenous Peoples’ social movements, policy experts and other participants in international economic summits and climate negotiations. She brings this wide breadth of experience to the BMIS collective and wants to continue this work to amplify the crucial voices of the HPL resister community.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dixie Pauline for more than a decade of work with BMIS and her continued support and dedication to the Black Mesa struggle. We wish Dixie the best in all of her endeavours.
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