From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: TEARING UP A BLOOD-STAINED TREATY
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 00:41:40 GMT

/** headlines: 324.0 **/
** Topic: Tearing up a blood-stained treaty **
** Written  5:45 pm  Sep 30, 1992 by ggundrey in cdp:headlines **
From: George Gundrey <ggundrey>
Subject: Tearing up a blood-stained treaty

/* Written  4:53 pm  Sep 30, 1992 by gn:peacenews in cdp:wri.news */
/* ---------- "Tearing up a blood-stained treaty" ---------- */
TEARING UP A BLOOD-STAINED TREATY

AUTHOR = JULEY HOWARD

On 3 August 1992, the US Senate voted decisively to bring an end to
nuclear weapons testing in Nevada. On 18 September a nuclear bomb was
exploded creating a 4.0 earthquake at Rainer Mess, Nevada, traditional
territory signed over to the US government by the Western Shoshone
people as part of the 1863 Ruby Valley Treaty.

Two Shoshone women, Pauline Esteves of the Western Shoshone National
Council and Heidi Blackeye of the Citizen Alert Native American
Program, spoke to _PN_ about land, reservations, Sir James Goldsmith
and nuclear testing.

"There was a war before the Shoshone were forced to sign the 1963
treaty," says Heidi. "The original treaty is in archives in Washington
DC. It has blood on it where some of the native people have signed the
treaty." Pauline adds that the Indian Claims Commission of 1979, when
the US government attempted to pay off the Shoshone people with $26
million, is equally invalid because they refused to accept the money.
"They used the fact that we have been paid off, but we never received a
dime. We don't want any money, because we'd be losing as lot more than
we already had. The land is not for sale. If we were to sell the land
we would be selling ourselves."

They are both clear that Indian Reservations, the enclaves created by
the US governments for indigenous peoples, are effectively small
prisons controlled by the federal authorities. In Timbisha (Death
Valley), Pauline's family are considered squatters and have been
uprooted to make way for a visitors' centre and a camping ground.
Because Timbisha has been declared a "National Monument" the Shoshone
are not permitted to become economically self-sufficient. Instead, they
are targeted by corporations and government departments eager to dump
toxic and other waste. They are also made the victims of arsenic
poisoning, as a direct result of gold mining. It is worth noting that
Newmont Mining, a major contributor to pollution in Nevada, is partly
owned (42 per cent) by Sir James Goldsmith ...

Nuclear testing is also targeted towards the Shoshone rather than white
North Americans. Sometimes, Pauline says, tests are postponed "because
the winds might be blowing towards Las Vegas." The US military and
government prefer nuclear debris to blow onto the reservations downwind
of the test sites. As a result, Heidi says, "a lot of people have been
affected. There have been children born with no limbs, with cancerous
diseases which have affected our elder people too."

The Shoshone position is set out by Chief Raymond Yowell of the Western
Shoshone National Council. "This is Shoshone land. Its use by the
United States for nuclear testing is a blatant violation of law and our
civil property rights. We cannot help but see that the United States
and other nuclear testing powers are testing their most destructive
weapons on other peoples' lands ... on the territory of native peoples
who cannot prevent the larger and more technologically powerful nations
from doing this to them."

But it goes beyond this, as Pauline explains. "Our recognition is not
written in the histories that you read. Ours is written into the
mountains, and into all the life-forms that the creator has placed upon
this land. And this land, this earth, we respect. We walk upon it
honouring it because it is our mother. When they do their weapons'
testing out there they make a hole down to a great depth and run into
the veins of mother earth. We have always known that we must not dig
that far into mother earth."

Heidi continues: "The law of the Shoshone people says that all living
things are connected and that you are not better off than any other
living thing. We all live off the land and living things feed us, keep
us alive. We're so modern today that we forget these things, but we
need to remind ourselves."

And finally, Pauline reminds us, "When the British do their weapons'
tests they are on Western Shoshone lands."

*******************************************************************
* Reprinted from Peace News 2359 (October 1992).                  *
* Please credit if reprinting.                                    *
* Peace News and War Resisters' International,                    *
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** End of text from cdp:headlines **

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