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A Call For Solidarity

May 10, 2023By 3 Comments

Call for Solidarity; Indigenous group seeks response from General Motors regarding human rights issues at Thacker Pass.

People of Red Mountain (PRM), is an Indigenous grassroots organization that was formed to protect the sacred site, Peehee Mu’huh – Thacker Pass. People of Red Mountain has raised significant and urgent concerns regarding human, religious, and Indigenous Peoples rights violations by the proposed mine.

In January of 2023, General Motors provided a $650 million joint Equity Investment and Supply Agreement with Lithium Americas to develop the Thacker Pass lithium mine at Peehee Mu’huh in Nevada. The SIRGE Coalition and People of Red Mountain prepared a letter to GM highlighting the company’s social policies and requesting a meeting on the human rights implications of this investment. We sent the letter in early March, but have not received a response. Currently, we are asking organizations and investors that support Paiute, Shoshone, and Bannock human rights to reach out to their contacts at GM, and request that the company respond to the letter.

Click on the link to see the letter that was sent in regards to General Motors’ recent $650 million joint Equity Investment and Supply Agreement with Lithium Americas to develop the Thacker Pass lithium mine at Peehee Mu’huh in Nevada.

Letter to General Motors

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Nevada Mining, Politics, and MMIW

May 6, 2023By

Mining isn’t pretty, nor are the politics that push communities into dangerous situations as a result. Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has introduced a bill that would make the 1872 Mining Act even worse. Relating to Thacker Pass, her bill (The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act) would ensure that Lithium Americas could dump their mining waste on the homelands of the Paiute, Shoshone, and Bannock people. The bill would also allow for man camps near reservations. Man camps are an unacceptable threat to indigenous communities like Fort McDermitt. Please take a moment to sign this petition urging Nevada’s Senators to think twice about pushing a bill which would bring irreparable harm to the people and the environment.

Further information about the bill put together by Earthjustice…

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“Lithium is a Trick.”

April 21, 2023By

Speaking on behalf of Peehee Mu’huh – People of Red Mountain member Daranda Hinkey explains that the spirits (past, present, and future) call on us to protect the sacred. “Keep the lithium in the ground.”

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Cost of Green Energy on Native People’s Sacred Lands

September 8, 2022By

An excerpt from an article originally posted by NBC News. 

Opponents of the mine draw on both oral and recorded history to establish its spiritual importance to the Shoshone and Paiute people. According to Gary McKinney, tribal oral history says soldiers massacred around 30 Paiute tribal members at Thacker Pass in 1865.

A contemporary newspaper account and a 1929 book, both cited in court filings, described an early-morning raid on a Paiute camp in September 1865 by the 1st Nevada Cavalry Battalion that killed women and children. The article called it an “Indian fight,” and said it left at least 31 Indians “permanently friendly,” meaning dead, and said that tally was probably low.

McKinney says that tribal members go to Thacker Pass to gather roots, medicinal herbs and berries for traditional ceremonies and rituals. Like many members of his tribe, he believes the valley, also known to Paiutes as Rotten Moon, is a “final resting place” for his ancestors.

Members of other Indigenous groups far from Thacker Pass have expressed support for McKinney and the opponents of the mine. To raise awareness, activists from around the U.S. ran, biked, rode horses and drove 2,600 miles from Nevada to New York.

You can read the full article on the NBC website.

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