Congress gives Native lands to mining company

(Photo: Reuters) | Photo: Reuters

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) sanctioned giving federal lands belonging to indigenous Americans to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the British Australian multinational, Rio Tinto.

The United States Congress is about to give 2,400 acres of national forest in Arizona that is considered ancestral land by Apache Native Americans to a mining company.

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees quietly amended a provision to a national defense act that would sanction the handover of a large section of the Tonto National Forest to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the British-Australian multinational mining company Rio Tinto Group.

Despite a last minute attempt to remove the land provision from the measure, the amendment moved through the U.S. House Rules Committee on Wednesday night.

The amendment is part of a measure attached to annual legislation governing allocations of funds to the U.S. Defense Department, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This determines how funds are allocated to the US Defense Department.

The “Carl Levin and Howard P. ‘Buck’ McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015” -- named after the soon-to-retires chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services panels -- includes the mandate to give away Apache burial, medicinal, and ritual grounds currently within the perimeters of the national forest to the mining company.

Section 3003 of the NDAA reads, “Subject to the provisions of this section, if Resolution Copper offers to convey to the United States all right, title, and interest of Resolution Copper in and to the non-Federal land, the Secretary is authorized and directed to convey to Resolution Copper, all right, title, and interest of the United States in and to the Federal land.”

However, the proposal brushes over the fact that the land to be conceded to the mining company includes cherished territory Apaches have used for centuries to gather medicinal plants and acorns. It is close to a location known as Apache Leap, a summit that tribal members jumped from in the late 19th century to save themselves from marauding settlers trying to kill them.

Terry Rambler, chair of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, told the The Huffington Post that while heartbroken, he was not all that surprised by the news.

“Of all people, Apaches and Indians should understand, because we’ve gone through this so many times in our history,” he said. “The first thing I thought about was not really today, but 50 years from now, probably after my time, if this land exchange bill goes through, the effects that my children and children’s children will be dealing with.”

The 2015 NDAA provides for other land grabs, including one that would allow logging on 70,000 acres of Tongass National Forest in Alaska, and another that would hand over 1,600 acres of one of the most polluted nuclear sites in the country, located in Washington State, to industrial development, a plan that has likewise sparked protest within the Yakama Nation. In October, Tribal Chairman JoDe Goudy wrote to the Committee on Armed Services urging them to stop the amendment.

In another controversial aspect of the amendment, the new NDAA also includes provisions related to allowing domestic “indefinite detention.” In other words, it “paves the way for Guantanamo-style indefinite detention being brought to the United States itself,” the American Civil Liberties Union concluded in its Blog of Rights.

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