Burning medical waste violated Navajo religious duties toward the dead

Evidence

Community outrage rose to a crescendo when residents discovered that the incinerator would also burn medical waste, including human body parts and amputated limbs. “That’s what really turned the stomachs of the Elders,” explained CARE cofounder Abe Plummer. “We have a belief that you respect the dead, and if you have to cut off a part of the body you put it in the Earth with respect—with prayers, not just throw it in the trash.” — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 605 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

David Leroy, DOE’s nuclear waste negotiator, aggressively courted tribes with nuclear waste proposals. According to Nilak Butler, a former Indigenous Environmental Network council member, Leroy and the DOE argued that Native responsibility to hold nuclear waste emanates from the “superior Native understanding of the natural world” and the fact that we are “our brother’s keeper.” — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 516 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Burning human remains violated Navajo burial respect and turned elders against the plant — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 605; The DOE recruited tribes to take nuclear waste by invoking Native spiritual duty. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 516

Related

• Burning human remains violated Navajo burial respect and turned elders against the plant (similarity 0.88)
• The DOE recruited tribes to take nuclear waste by invoking Native spiritual duty. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Burning human remains violated Navajo burial respect and turned elders against the plant #corroborates (0.95) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 605
• The DOE recruited tribes to take nuclear waste by invoking Native spiritual duty. #expands (0.75) — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 516