Diné Organization Files Uranium Complaint with OAS Human Rights Agency

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, USA—Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) announced this week it will file its Additional Observations on the Merits including written and video testimony and other exhibits to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) based in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Oct. 21.

ENDAUM’s petition states that when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed Hydro Resources, Inc. (HRI) (now known as NuFuels, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company Laramide Resources) to operate uranium mining in the two Diné (Navajo) communities of Crownpoint and Churchrock it violated human rights guaranteed in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, including the rights to life, health, benefits of culture, fair trial, and property.

The U.S. NRC licensed an ISL uranium mine it knows will contaminate groundwater that is an important resource of drinking water and cultural identity to communities that suffer increased risk of death and disease from historic uranium mining and milling the United States government not only tolerated but promoted.

ENDAUM and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC) will be holding a Gathering over zoom on THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21 AT 12:30PM MDT to Celebrate the filing and to be available to members of the media to answer any questions about this unprecedented reckoning for the U.S. government and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for past and future uranium mining and milling activities on Indigenous lands.

Read additional coverage in the Albuquerque based online news site The Paper