Raid at Eagle Rock
Two campers arrested, camp destroyed
By Greg Peterson, Today correspondent
Kennecott Eagle Minerals employees put a fence across the driveway
to the Eagle Rock encampment with state police and mine security looking
on. The raid May 27 resulted in two campers being arrested and the
campsite being destroyed.
Story Published: May 27, 2010
BIG BAY, Mich. – The defenders of sacred Eagle Rock sat in a circle and
wept as they were surrounded by dozens of heavily armed state and local
police officers who raided the Eagle Rock encampment the morning of May
27 arresting two campers at the request of Kennecott Eagle Minerals, who
wasted no time destroying the month-old camp to make way for their
nickel and copper mine.
Witnesses say there were about six people at Eagle Rock when police
moved in including four campers who had spent the night and two
supporters who arrived with a warning the raid was imminent. Armed with
high-powered rifles, Michigan State Police and mine security could be
seen atop Eagle Rock scanning the vast Yellow Dog Plains with binoculars
apparently looking for trespassers.
Two handcuffed campers, who refused to leave when ordered by police,
were taken away by sheriff’s deputies and driven nearly one hour to the
Marquette County Jail and were released on bond. Arrested were Keweenaw
Bay Indian Community members Chris Chosa, 28, and Charlotte Loonsfoot,
37, both of Baraga, Mich.
Loonsfoot was one of three women who set up the encampment April 23
protesting the arrest three days earlier of environmentalist Cynthia
Pryor and hoping to protect Eagle Rock from the Eagle Project nickel and
copper mine. Despite federal treaties that allow Ojibwa to hunt, fish
and gather on the Yellow Dog Plains, the state of Michigan leased the
land to Kennecott to open a sulfide mine. The mine portal is planned
near the front of Eagle Rock and the tunnel will travel underneath the
rock.
“Today, we got a message in camp that police were on their way,” said
non-Native camper Catherine Parker of the warning from two members of
the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve who arrived shortly before police.
“Charlotte and Chris had no intention of leaving voluntarily.”
Parker said the Eagle Rock defenders wept for the land as they sat in a
circle.
“There were a lot of tears and passionate remarks because the people
have come to care a lot about each other out here,” said Parker of
Marquette, Mich. “We have all been working together, Native Americans
and whites to protect something that is tremendously important to us.”
After police arrived, “we stayed as long as we could, we kept asking to
stay with our friends (Chosa and Loonsfoot),” said Parker, wiping away a
tear. “We sat down with them repeatedly, we were pushed verbally
numerous times by law enforcement.”
“It’s breaking my heart,” said a crying Parker as she witnessed heavy
equipment roaring up the entrance to Eagle Rock. “This mine is not going
to perform (safely) as they say it will. What is going to happen if the
mine collapses into the Trout Salmon River?”
Police from several agencies “literally surrounded us in a big circle,”
said Kalvin Hartwig, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa
who spent the night of May 26 at Eagle Rock but was not arrested after
agreeing to leave the property with his car.
When police arrived, “three of us and two visitors were down by the
sacred fire and another one of our campers (Charlotte Loonsfoot) was up
on the hill fasting,” Hartwig said. “I think this whole situation is
pretty sad.
“The water and this land is at-risk. These people (Kennecott) are here
illegally about to destroy it.”
According to the Save The Wild UP Web site, about 20 police cars were
sent and warned to expect a riot that never occurred. Many supporters
and the media rushed to the scene after hearing the Powell Township
emergency personnel dispatched with instructions to stage at the main
entrance to the mine including an ambulance and fire trucks. No injuries
were reported.
Atop a pole at the entrance to the camp, a lone eagle feather fluttered
in the dusty wind as heavy equipment moved in. Mine officials doused the
grandfather fire, uprooted the Eagle Rock Community Garden, removed two
flags from atop Eagle Rock and bulldozed the camp.
Deputies blocked the dusty, remote, seasonal Triple A Road at the mine
entrance but allowed the media and campers to walk the three-quarters of
a mile to the former entrance to the camp that was blocked by heavy
machinery as mine employees erected a metal cyclone fence. The media was
not allowed to see the remains of the encampment.
“They are putting up a fence and they are wrecking our garden we
planted,” said Gabriel Caplett, who has posted daily updates about the
campers activities on the Stand for the Land Blog and has written
countless stories about the fight to stop the mine since it was
announced in 2004. “They are putting out the sacred fire” that has
burned since the first night.
There was no word on what happened to the tents and a large cache of
food and other supplies donated by supporters. About 10 campers spent
the night of May 25 at Eagle Rock, but several left to prepare for
activities planned at the rock for Memorial Day weekend.
Two non-Native campers, not present for the raid, broke into tears while
walking to Eagle Rock.
“It’s heartbreaking, it’s really disconcerting to feel the rights of the
corporations have been put above and beyond the rights of the people,”
said Amy Conover of Marquette, Mich. When politicians “get into power
they don’t act on behalf of the people, they act on behalf of the
money.”
A Detroit native attending nursing school in Marquette said she “can’t
understand how hardened the hearts have become of the people who are
doing this.”
“To not feel how wrong it actually is – is a very scary thing,” said
Laura Nagle. “The police officer said this is a ‘bummer’ this was
happening, it is not a bummer, it is a catastrophe, a tragedy and a
misfortune for us all. This can still be stopped.”
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