MEXICO CITY: A small group of protesters took to the streets outside of Sen. John McCain’s Tucson, Arizona, office, banging drums and decrying two of the senator’s recent actions in Washington that affect the borderlands and Native American reservations. There were about 70 to 75 protesters, all members of environmental and tribal rights groups.
One focus of the protest was a bill introduced in March by McCain and Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon that would free up U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel from the need to request federal permissions to access land that is otherwise protected. The other focus was a provision that Senator McCain added to a defense appropriations bill in December that traded away sacred Native American tribal land in the Tanto National Forest to build a copper mine. The company building the mine is Rio Tinto, which also owns a uranium mine with Iran in Namibia.
“Those lands are on the Tonto National Forest, so they belong to all Americans,” said Randy Serraglio, the Southwest Conservation Advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, which attended the protests and advocates for the protection of endangered species. “It’s a very popular recreation site, but it’s also a sacred place to the Apache people.” The Tanto National Forest is found just to the northeast of Phoenix, Arizona.
