Six LANL protestors unite spiritual purpose with political action

When they learned that Occupy members were going to participate in the Hiroshima Day protests at Ashley Pond last summer, some Los Alamos residents were reportedly so apprehensive that they feared for the safety of the ducks, and urged their removal during the event.

An activist posted a sign at the Pond: “Hell No We Won’t Go.”

The National Laboratory at Los Alamos was also anticipating crowds of unruly demonstrators. On the morning of the protests, 30 security forces (SOC teams: “Securing Our Country“) assigned to the task were sequestered at the parking garage on the campus of the laboratory in full riot gear.

During the rush hour of August 6, 2012, a group of some 30 demonstrators arrived at the gates of the Lab and stood peacefully in the crosswalk of the main road to the entrance, carrying signs. When city police directed them to disperse, all but six remained in the road. After the third order to disperse was given, members of the “SOC” team arrived on the scene to assist with arrests.

Now known as the LANL6, the protestors – one young man and five grey-haired women – were tried in the municipal court of Judge Alan Kirk on January 9, 2013 before a packed courtroom. They all stated firmly that their reasons for standing their ground in front of the Lab were spiritual and moral, that they did not wish to be arrested, and that their action was not a crime in comparison with the real crime they protested: the continued production of nuclear weapons at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Pamela Gilchrist, 73, a retired minister of the United Church of Christ, said she believed there was a “higher law” to which she answered.

“I was there so I could make the statement that we should take the resources we consume to manufacture nuclear weapons and use them to address the most critical problem we face, and that is climate change,” she said.

Others referred to human laws that our government has broken, most critically the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Article 6, signed 20 years ago by the United States among 105 other nations, vowing to progressively eliminate all nuclear weapons. Although the U.S. has reduced the arsenal, the proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement  (CMRR) facility is intended to create the capacity to assemble more bombs on short notice.

Other treaties have been broken. The Lab is situated on sacred lands belonging to the local Pueblos; although the federal government signed treaties promising to return these lands after the war, those treaties were never honored.

All international treaties become part of the body of laws that rule the United States, according to the Constitution.

Dr. Catherine Euler, former professor of history and women’s studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson, stated that, “radiation is a form of violence against women and children” because their bodies are more sensitive to it; she referred to scientific studies that confirm the effects of low-level radiation on the human genome. She referred to documents she had read at the LANL Library about the testing of animals trapped in cages close to atomic explosions, which were later incinerated so that their ashes could be examined. “They knew in the 1950s,” she said.

“Your children are at risk from radiation,” she said. “I wanted the security officers to know that. Fathers’ exposure can be critical for the later development of cancers in offspring. There’s an immediate threat to the people of Los Alamos, especially workers who go there every day.” She referred to recent studies in Germany and France confirming the health effects of alpha-emitters when internalized in the body, where they continue to bombard neighboring cells.

Janet Greenwald, who lived for many years in Dixon, “directly downwind from the Lab,” wept when she spoke of information she had seen show in birth defects found in children from Espanola. After the Cerro Grande fire of 2003, she said, local people tested their organic crops and found cesium in broccoli, cobalt in plums, and a high degree of cesium in the Embudo water supply.

All six protestors said they were not there to be arrested, that they did not intend to stop traffic, they just wanted to get their message across. They did not believe that the crosswalk of the road was private property.

“Our nation is on a bad track,” noted Cathie Sullivan, one of the six. “I want to resist the militarization of our country.”

The Judge found all six guilty of failure to obey a police officer and obstructing traffic, and fined them each $342, a much lower fine than had been anticipated; they were not found guilty of trespassing.

The six said that they did not wish to pay the fine and might refuse in favor of serving time in jail.

In these disjointed times, when most public officials fail to support the beliefs to which they give lip service, the deep commitment and moral integrity of the LANL6 is a beacon illuminating a different path into the future, where commitment to the common good over-rides personal gain and comfort.

Their courage is an inspiration.

 

For more info see Support the LANL 6:

http://losalamos6.tumblr.com/

Also see: La Jicarita article on LANL6 

 

When the Colonizer is Gone

In New Mexico the wounds of colonialism run deep, despite the delicate balance of the three cultures – Anglo, Hispano and Native American – so often touted as an attraction for tourists.

At a conference held in Northern New Mexico last weekend, the pain of these old grievances was never far below the skin.

Beautiful woodwork on the ceiling of the main lecture hall on the El Rito campus, built in 1907.

Called Historias de Nuevo Mexico and held at the El Rito campusof the Northern New Mexico State College, the purpose of the conference was to present complementary perspectives of the state’s unique history to correct the picture cultivated by mainstream historians celebrating the state’s centennial.

What did it mean to the tribes, for example, when New Mexico was finally admitted to the Union? Precious little, said Glenabah Martinez; “we were already sovereign nations.” Martinez, who grew up in the Taos Pueblo, is Assistant Professor at UNM and author of the book, Native Pride.  She spoke about the new curriculum she has recently completed, incorporating and celebrating the pueblo experience for the K-12 educational system.

One example discussed by Martinez was the response of the Pueblo people to repeated demands by one Charles Burke, Commissioner of the Office of Indian Affairs, that the Indians limit their dancing so that they might give up “evil” behavior and get more work done. The response of the Council of All the New Mexico Pueblos, May 5, 1924, was eloquent: “This is the time of the great question. Shall we peacefully but strongly and deathlessly hold to the religion of our fathers, to our own religion, which binds us together and makes us the brothers and children of God? There is no future for the Race of the Indians if its religion is killed.”

Bronze statue of Onate at El Paso Airport

The right of the pueblos to uphold their native identity had been under siege since the arrival of the Spaniards in 1598, led by the brutal Juan Onate, most infamous for ordering that captives from Acoma Pueblo be punished for an attack on Onate’s cousin with the loss of one foot. Whether this horror was actually carried out has been disputed, historian Thomas Chavez stated in his talk,  but Onate’s ruthless domination of the Pueblos was followed by other conquistadores and the church that accompanied them.

It’s not as if the atrocities ended there. New to me was the practice of capturing and enslaving the children and women, and sometimes the men, from the more aggressive outlying tribes – the Navajos, Pawnees, Apaches, Kiowa Apaches, Utes, and Paiutes – and selling them as slaves.

These children, known as genizaros, grew up without any sense of their original identity. They seldom became members of the Master’s family; they were doomed to be always “other”. Today, many people throughout the southwest may be genizaros without even knowing their origin. Cynthia Gomez spoke about her own discovery of her personal history, and what she has learned about her grandmother’s experience as a genizaro. She showed the trailer of a film she is making called “Without a Tribe.”

Few women came here with the Spanish soldiers who settled here, so it is unsurprising that the men became involved with the beautiful Pueblo women, and some of these couples married. Sadly, native women’s subjective experience of patriarchal marriage was not addressed here; perhaps it would have stirred up too much controversy in this setting. One can surmise that the women became subservient to their Spanish husbands and soon gave up their native ways as Christianity became the family religion; and after some time, the whole family claimed to be Hispanic.

The two cultures became so inter-mingled that it’s often difficult for an outsider to be sure who is Indian and who is not; a person from either group is likely to have a Spanish surname even if living at the pueblo. Thus former enemies who might have fought and killed one other during the two Pueblo Revolts have gradually come to share a new indigenous culture. People of the land, Estevan Arellano pointed out, they share the native diet we know as “New Mexican food” – tortillas, chili, beans, posole, enchiladas, atole, calabacitas. For both peoples, the querencia, the landscape, is as precious as the tie to family. Perhaps the two cultures have become more alike than different, especially after the Santa Fe Trail and the Mexican American war delivered to the shores of the Rio Grande a new colonizer: the Anglo.

With the arrival of white Americans during the 19th century, America’s triumph in the Mexican American War (slyly instigated by President Polk), and the subsequent failure of the United States government to respect the land grants that had been given to the settlers by Spain, both communities became blended into a single underclass in an increasingly white society that both had reason to distrust and resist.

The tenuous balance that remains today is what gives New Mexico its unique flavor, but the underlying grief, and the anger, can still be felt here. If Native Americans and Hispanos have become vecinos, it’s not clear that anglos have been accepted into that mix. The presence of the vast military edifice on this beloved landscape, especially the nuclear laboratory, remains a reminder of where power is held here.

Myrriah Gomez talked about the Lab’s impact during the second day of the conference. Unfortunately I was unable to stay, but I remember an essay she wrote as an undergraduate that was published in the Pojuaque News, “Before the Bomb, There Were Bean Fields.”

This colonial master represents elite and special knowledge, great power, and significant wealth. With the collaboration of local political elites, the nuclear behemoth is a source of money to state agencies; it creates jobs, but by employing Hispano and Native men and women, it effectively silences them. The unions will not support any disarmament efforts that call for closing the lab; their interest is to protect the jobs the lab provides. The nuclear establishment also provides the tribes with an annual stipend that effectively holds tribal governments in check.

This colonization by the lab is nonviolent and subtle; the people’s resistance is stopped with dollars. The lab’s presence here challenges us to relate to one another as human beings, rather than as institutions or races.

Bridging the gap created by color was the intent of the talk by Adrian Bustamente, Professor Emeritus from Ft. Lewis College. Tracing the DNA pathway through the cell mitochondria has revealed that we have all evolved from seven African mothers. Difference of skin color has only to do with climate and exposure to the sun, Bustamente pointed out; so we might as well get over our surface differences.

But it’s a challenge to retain cultural identity and cope with the hatred sown of historic suffering while sharing space with the descendants of the conqueror.

It will take more than the mitochondria, but if our conversations with one another come from a place of heart, instead of from a place of intellectual formality, we may yet find a way to become a free people dressed in many colors that are only skin deep.