Events in Broken Rainbow Film

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Events in Broken Rainbow Film

Broken Rainbow is a 1995 documentary directed by Victoria Mudd and Maria Florio. The film presents an overview of ruthless treatment of more than 12,000 Navajo Native Americans, when the US government forced them to relocate from their ancestral land. The cogress passed the law forcing the Navajo Indians to relocate in 1974. The locals were given until 1986 to complete the relocation task. Although the congress stated that the purpose of relocation was to prevent disputes between Navajos and Hopis communities, the key reason for evacuation was to facilitate the development of mining projects on the land.

Considering the number and volumes of minerals that were found in the land, it can be argued that the relocation exercise was necessary in order to facilitate the development. The land had large volumes of different minerals, such as coal, uranium, oil and gas. However, the approach taken by the US government was ruthless and caused devastatiion to the local communities. The relocation exercise had dire effects upon the local communities. On top of being forced out of their sacred ancestral land, houses and plants owned by the local communities were destroyed to facilitate mining. In addition, livestock owned Navajos and Hopis were reduced. Their culture was also obliterated in the process. Despite the impacts of the relocation exercise, the local communities were not adequately compensated by the US government. The Navajo, for instance, were only compensated with 1.8% for the natural gas that was mined from their land, 3.7% for the uranium, 1.3% for the oil and 4% of coal. Given the horrific treatment, the locals required better compensation.

On top of that, some of the mining companies were only after profit and hardly cared about the impact of the mining activities on workers, surrounding communities and the natural environment. For instance, many workers in the uranium mines who developed lung cancer after breathing toxic gases were not given any compensation. Peabody Coal contributed to water contamination and widespread air pollution that led to increase in rates of birth defects.