From the Amazon to the Navajo Nation, Indigenous Women Roar for Water, Land, and People

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 24, 2025

NEW YORK -- From the heart of the Amazon, Indigenous women demand their voices be heard, and oil and mining companies be sanctioned for crimes against humanity for the metals poisoning their rivers and women.

"I'm not here by mere coincidence, I'm here with the strength of our grandchildren, our young people, and our martyrs," Fany Kuiru Castro, coordinator of COICA, told the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

She said countries must carry out inquiries for the ongoing crimes against humanity and issue sanctions against businesses for the crimes of extractivism, oil and mining.

The oil and mining industries leave toxic contamination, arsenic, mercury and lead. Those medals contaminate the rivers and affect the reproductive health of the women, resulting in infertility, fetal abnormalities, miscarriages and rare illnesses, as was seen in Ecuador and other regions.

"We don't come to ask for your permission but to demand justice for our physical and cultural survival and our dignity -- because when an Indigenous woman speaks, she does not speak alone."

Ecocide in Bolivia

The extractive industries lead to extermination, to genocide, said the Indigenous Parliamentarian from Bolivia. Many of her Indigenous brothers and sisters have their blood contaminated with cyanide and mercury and others, and they have no access to hospitals. They don't have medical insurance, she said, and they have no way of alleviating this.

"The ecocide is continuing," she told the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York today.

Mining is Global Crisis for Indigenous

Blood diamonds are the currency for weapons in the Congo.

In Europe, Sami rights are violated by mining without free, prior and informed consent. The mining of critical minerals is a global crisis for Indigenous Peoples, from Asia to Bolivia, Colombia and Guatemala, say Indigenous Peoples speaking at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.

The violence targeting Indigenous Peoples by mining companies continues globally during the so-called energy transition, as Indigenous homelands are targeted for lithium and critical minerals. And the majority of the mining companies are headquartered in Canada and Australia.

Australia is failing to back Indigenous leadership, said the representative from South Wales and Australia.

"Expelling invaders does not work, because they return," said Brazil's representative.

"We have been fighting and getting stronger, to reclaim the child in each of us," said an Indigenous representative from so-called Canada, speaking about surviving residential schools.

In the struggle for their land, he said, "We need the title to our land."

"We need the U.N. Declaration Rights on Indigenous Peoples and free, prior and informed consent." The rivers are being polluted, and massive landslides blocked the migration of salmon, and the salmon are the source of their food security.

Consent must be given by the people for resource extraction, he said.

The representatives said their children and women are not protected by the government of Canada, and continue to go missing.

"Our children are our greatest resource."

While Indigenous from every region of the world speak out at the United Nations, in the Navajo Nation Capitol of Window Rock, Arizona, Dine' rally to protect their water from new threats of coal mining, and the ongoing radioactive uranium trucks from the Grand Canyon uranium mine now endangering Navajos.

During rallies at the Navajo Nation Council on Monday and Tuesday, Dine' said Navajo President Buu Nygren was a "No Show" at the Navajo Nation Council's spring session. Dine' said Nygren was in Washington cutting deals for new coal mining that he has no authority to make.

This comes after Nygren cut a deal with Energy Fuels, without the Navajo Council's knowledge or approval, for radioactive uranium trucks to cross the Navajo Nation, from the Pinyon Plain mine in the Grand Canyon, enroute to Energy Fuels uranium mill and dump in the White Mesa Ute community in southeastern Utah.

Outside the Navajo Nation Council, Louise Benally of Big Mountain remembered the long struggle against forced relocation, and the decades of Peabody Coal destroying the land on Black Mesa, the huge loss of their precious water for coal mining, and how Peabody Coal fed electricity for southwestern homes, while Navajos on Black Mesa lived without electricity.

Louise remembered her mother here, at the Navajo Nation Council, protesting in 1979, during the struggle of more than 45 years to resist relocation, protect their water, land and medicine plants, and remain in their homeland.

During the rally at the Navajo Nation Council on Tuesday, the American Indian Movement was present and recognized and appreciated for their defense and resistance on Black Mesa.

Meanwhile, at the United Nations in New York, Shantelle Thompson, a proud Barkindji/Ngiyampaa, brought the power of the oldest living culture in the world, stating that Australian Aboriginal women are not victims, and do not sell out to fit the colonial narrative.

Thompson, a world champion black belt, delivered this message of women rising.

Thompson said she descends from the oldest living culture in the world and is a dreaming-led woman. She comes as a sovereign, self-determined woman, walking with the strength of her ancestors, with the fire of the future in her bones, and planting seeds for generations.

She carries the identity of daughter, sister, mother, auntie, black belt and world champion, storyteller, founder, knowledge-keeper, guide and warrior.

She is known as the Barkindji Warrior.

"We are not broken, we are not helpless, we are powerful beyond measure."

"I am not here to ask for permission, I am here to remind the world that when Indigenous women rise, the world changes."

Read more in Censored News series

From the heart of the Amazon, women arise about violence, demand sanctions on mining

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/04/from-heart-of-amazon-women-rise-above.html

The ecocide of mining in Bolivia

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-ecocide-of-mining-testimony-at-un.html

Australian Indigenous brings power of warrior women to United Nations

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/04/australian-indigenous-brings-power-of.html

Fighting for the People, Protecting the Water, Dine' Rally at Navajo Nation Council

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/04/fighting-for-people-protecting-water.html

Navajo President is a 'No Show.' Dine' Say Nygren is Selling Them out in Washington

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/04/dine-coalition-opposes-navajo.html

U.N. Permanent Forum Begins with Voices of Indigenous Women

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/04/un-permanent-forum-on-indigenous-issues.html

Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News