PROTEST FROM THE HEART

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

      WARD VALLEY, Calif. -- Like the campfire that flickered in front of them, the spirit of Norma "Stormy" Williams warmed the throng of American Indians as her cloth-shrouded ashes were waved by a leader in the cold night air.
      "This is the night of the standoff," said an emotional Wally Antone, spiritual leader of the Quechans, one of five Colorado River tribes that had gathered at the site.
      "This is a time of crisis," he said. "It's so sad to continue to fight our own government."
     

Rodney Patch of the Colorado River Indian tribes guards sacred staffs before a ceremony last week to protest plans for a low-level radioactive waste dump in Ward Valley, Calif., and to honor late anti-nuclear activist Norma "Stormy" Williams. Photos by John Gurzinski. A hole in an American flag frames young Fort Mojave dancers. The flag flies upside down as a sign of distress at the site of the proposed dump, 22 miles west of Needles, Calif., and 117 miles south of Las Vegas. The Bureau of Land Management wants to turn over Ward Valley to California to build the 80-acre unlined pit. Smoke from a sage bundle swirls around Quechan spiritual leader Wally Antone during a ceremony at the proposed radioactive waste dump. Tribal elders listen during a ceremony to protest the planned nuclear dump in Ward Valley, Calif. Tribes have fought the plans for 11 years.

By busloads and carloads, more than 200 tribal members and their anti-nuclear supporters had come to this desolate expanse of desert, 22 miles west of Needles, Calif., and 117 miles south of Las Vegas.
      Their mission was to bury the ashes of Williams -- who was 68 when she died of breast cancer last year -- and to carry out her goal of stopping the federal government from selling 1,000 acres of federal lands to California for an 80-acre unlined dump for low-level radioactive waste.
      Williams, from the historic California mining town of Rosamond, was co-founder and president of California Communities Against Toxics.
      In a ceremony normally performed only for American Indians, Williams' ashes were buried Monday night on the land targeted for the dump.
      The fact that she was a white woman made no difference to those who had gathered at the Ward Valley dump site for last week's standoff.
      "It's not the color of our skin that makes us Indians," said Quechan council member Claudette White.
      "It's what's inside. It's what we've been taught," she said, raising a hand to her heart.
      For 11 years, the tribes -- the Fort Mojave, Chemehuevi, Quechan, Cocopah and Colorado River -- have protested the Bureau of Land Management's attempt to turn over Ward Valley to California for a nuclear dump. For the last 2 1/2 years, they have maintained a presence at the site, and for the last two weeks, they have occupied the site by camping out, an activity that was supposed to have stopped Feb. 19, according to a BLM order.
      That order has not been carried out. And, said California's top BLM official, State Director Ed Hastey, it has been put on hold indefinitely, or at least until Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has been briefed following his return this week from a trip outside the country.
      On Wednesday, with 100 protesters still present, the BLM pulled back its contingent of 10 rangers, who had been monitoring the campsite day and night. Hastey ordered the stand-down because, a bureau spokeswoman said, law enforcement was not needed while negotiations were continuing.
      Fort Mojave Tribal Council member Melba Guerrero said the tribes will not budge.
      "We've been here thousands and thousands of years," she said last week. "I will stay here until Babbitt gets here or the president gets here. Bring somebody who has authority to make decisions. We're tired of messing around with flunkies."
      The tribes contend it would be sacrilegious to build a dump at Ward Valley because the place has special meaning to them.
      Plants with medicinal qualities grow on the wind-swept terrain, just 20 miles west of the river. Dense numbers of desert tortoises -- a threatened and federally protected reptile -- also roam the site, which is considered by biologists to be habitat crucial to the tortoise's survival.
      The river, according to Fort Mojave tribal history, is the center of existence for the Aha Macave -- "the people who live along the water."
      Mastamho, the little brother of the Great Spirit, Matavilya, had given the river to these people not long after Matavilya was born from the chaotic union of the earth and sky, according to the tribe.
      The protesters said record-setting El Ni–o-spawned rainstorms and powerful winds that they have endured are proof that no unlined pit could ever keep nuclear materials from escaping into the river and ground water layers.
      Radioactive waste, they fear, would poison the water as well as the land and air, ruining their heritage at the place where their ancestors, "the ancient ones," are buried.
      Braced by a cane, one of the older men rose to speak.
      "When I first heard about this dump coming in, I thought about my relatives. I thought they would get poisoned. My belief is so strong I prayed every night," said Llewelyn Barrackman, a Pearl Harbor veteran and vice chairman of the Fort Mojave tribe.
      "Now I'm fightin' back again. I'm volunteering again. We're not going to give up. We're going to stay right here and fight," said Barrackman, who like the others have vowed to "fight" in a nonviolent way.
      Mike Jackson, president of the Quechan nation, addressed the crowd, too.
      "The whole Earth is our religion. They're not going to build it. We're not going to allow it," he said.
      For more than a week, the tribes have not allowed BLM officials to enter the proposed dump site without escorts, about two miles south of where Water Road crosses over Interstate 40. The tribes have posted braves from the American Indian Movement at the site's entrance, where they stand wearing red armbands over their camouflaged shirts.
      They said they are there to ensure no violence erupts and to prevent any attempt by government scientists to sample the soil for tritium from atmospheric nuclear tests -- a step in the evaluation of the site.
      On this night, Vernon Foster, a Klamath-Modoc, of Mesa, Ariz., who serves as Southwest director of the American Indian Movement, escorted the BLM's Hastey to the standoff ceremony.
      Hastey listened while Foster spoke.
      "We are frustrated, and we are angry," said Foster, his braided hair dangling from beneath a black beret.
      "We want our children to be able to come to this place. We've had to come up with laws to keep our graves from being dug up.
      "We are a tired people. We are tired of our struggles. We have never had a day of peace. We want you to think about our people with the heart and not the mind," he said.
      And while they watched, Antone held high the multicolored blanket bearing Williams' ashes. Smoke from a smoldering sage bundle swirled around him. He brought the folded blanket around for the elders to touch while they sat in chairs in front of the fire.
      "The people of the United States don't know if they're buried out here," Antone said, referring to the ancient ones.
      "Her ashes will be buried here," he said. "Then this will be proof enough this is sacred land."
      At his request, Hastey, flanked by two other BLM officials, then walked to the center of the crowd and stood in front of the fire, and said, "We've been with this for 11 years. We do listen and continue to listen."