Native American burial sites have been blown up by construction crews building the US-Mexico border wall, says a lawmaker and tribal leaders.
Authorities confirmed that “controlled blasting” has begun at Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a Unesco recognised natural reserve.
Environmental groups also warn of the damage being done to the local underground aquifer, as well as to migrating wildlife in the remote desert region about 115 miles west of Tucson.
This is the top of “Monument Hill,” a sacred site to multiple tribes, that @DHSgov is dynamiting right now to build the #borderwall. It’s part of the historic homeland of the O’odham. Apache are buried here. Trump waived the Native American Graves Protection Act to allow this. pic.twitter.com/NsFeLZTaMH
— Russ McSpadden (@PeccaryNotPig) February 9, 2020
What is Organ Pipe?
The United Nations designated Organ Pipe as an International Biosphere Reserve in 1976, calling it “a pristine example of an intact Sonoran Desert ecosystem”.
It is also a place where the Tohono O’odham Nation buried warriors from the rival Apache tribe. This is the exact place that was blown up to make way for the US border wall.
Many are calling the acts by the US government “sacrilegious”. The environmental monitor that the government assigned to the project doesn’t appear to have done anything to mitigate the cultural damage, either.
Organ Pipe National Monument
One area contained artifacts dating back 10,000 years.
Tribal chairman Ned Norris Jr told the Arizona Republic that even though the land is now controlled by the US government, “we have inhabited this area since time immemorial.”
“They’re our ancestors. They’re our remnants of who we are as a people, throughout this whole area. And it’s our obligation, it’s our duty to do what is necessary to protect that.”
