Scars Upon Sacred Land III: Columbus in Arizona

Apache Leap. Image credit unknown.

Author's Note: This piece first appeared as an entry in the EcoJustice series at Daily Kos on October 11, 2010 ("Columbus Day"), hence the references to the invader. It appears here with minor edits for background into my Scars Upon Sacred Land series.

Today is a day that some folks celebrate as a holiday. They call it "Columbus Day." Me? I call it "European Invaders' Day," and I don't celebrate it.

I do, however, use this day to remember - and to remind myself that it can happen again. And it is.

The latest episode is one state over, in Arizona. And it literally involves European (and Australian) corporate invaders, attempting once again to strip tribes of sacred lands and resources, while plundering, pillaging, and despoiling the environment.

We explored a little of this in last week's EcoJustice with the sordid histories of the two transnationals behind this latest effort, BHP Billiton and the Rio Tinto Group. Tonight, we're going to delve into their joint faux "American" operation: The Resolution Project.

And it's going to get ugly.

Scars Upon Sacred Land II: Apache Leap and BHP Billiton/Rio Tinto

Apache Leap.  Photo credit unknown.

Author's Note: This piece first appeared as part of the now-defunct EcoJustice series at Daily Kos on October 4, 2010. It is reposted here with minor edits.

Welcome to Apache Leap. The elders tell of a time when invading U.S. soldiers sought to abduct the Apache people, herd them onto reservations, and steal their land. The people fought valiantly, but were woefully outnumbered. When the end came, the Apache warriors chose to retain their honor rather than surrender to thieves and thugs: They leapt off the peak to their deaths below, joining the spirits of their ancestors and depriving the Army of prize captives.

At the base of the formation, a nearly-translucent brown-black obsidian is found. The stones are called Apache tears, and as the story goes, when the surviving women found the bodies of their men at the base of the leap, they mourned so deeply and bitterly that Spirit turned their tears to beautifully, lethally sharp stone, so that no one would forget the crime against the people that had happened in that place.

Now, John McCain, Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, and other greedy pols want to turn this sacred space over to an even greedier consortium of foreign corporations - to desecrate it further and dishonor the memories of those warriors and their survivors.