Testimony
Rickson Bedonie
P.O. Box 122 Sanders, Arizona 86512
September 5, 1997

To: The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the Center for Human Rights, appropriate Special Rapporteurs, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, the Commission on the Status of Women, all appropriate UN fora, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), European Support Network, Supporters, US Congress, Navajo Hopi Indian Relocation Commission

Greetings, I am a Dineh belonging to Edgewater Clan, Born for the Near Water People from Big Mountain, Arizona. I am on the A list, eligible for a homesite and eligible for relocation benefits. I signed the Accommodation but I oppose it with my heart. Ever since 1968 I resisted and have been denied a house. I signed because I felt that I would end up with nothing and be evicted. That's why I signed. I want a place to call home. I can't even accumulate things because I have been denied a home. They are not giving me a choice to resist signing. They say we have a choice to sign or not to sign, but it's the same thing either way. One choice has possible benefits, the other none.

My feeling to the land, I think of the land as my mother. I wish the ground would be wet more often. I think that permaculture can cut back on the erosion that comes with lack of rain.

To begin with, I love myself for being a Native American, full blooded. Being part Apache, Zuni and Navajo I love having the sense of being a traditional Dineh carrying on the spirituality of the Dineh people.

We as Dineh, think of good things towards the East, the calmness and wellness of dawn into the future, hoping for good things, an end to harassment that the U.S. government, the Hopi Rangers and tribal government is inflicting on our people, the Genocide, violating our peoples' perennial rights and mental well being. And to the South, we pray for harmony with Nature. To the West, we pray every evening at dusk thanking for the day and talking to the darkness, praying to the darkness so that al will be well until the next day. And to the North, we pray remembering our ancestors thanking them in terms of putting us here on the earth where they left off. We may not fulfill our ancestors, they are probably weak in the spirit world with what is going on with their grandkids, their human and civil rights violated day in and day out. Even though the Hopis and the government tells us HPL is not our land, we still pray to it like it is ours and we pray to it in our religion. Our stories and our legends pertain to our culture in the Big Mountain area in prayers and songs of sacred spirituality.

It really doesn't seem right the way the court proceedings are going and things continuing to be settled without our knowledge, Public Law 93-531, Public Law 104-301, the Accommodation Agreement. We were not aware of who were the Mediators. The people weren't informed there either. According to the law things should be dismissed, people were not informed as plaintiffs. Today as the government calls us American citizens saying we are living in the land of the free and the brave, we are no longer free with all these ordinances by the U.S. government and both tribal councils, Hopi and Navajo on the people. It doesn't feel right to the heart and the mind. It feels unjust. The reason, to extract minerals, fossil fuels, uranium, natural gas from the land we live on. We are being sacrificed to technology and energy needs. We do not have to burn coal for energy. The coal mine, Peabody Coal is desecrating burial sites, sacred shrines and raping our mother and stripping her of her clothes.
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As Native people we oppose it. We feel we don't have the freedom of religion as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. government is known for stripping their Native people of their sovereignty and self sufficiency but it is also their way of making a living off our land and forcing us out of their way. People live with minimal amount of currency before 1970. Then we were eating healthier food then, doing organic farming, free of pesticides, starch and other additives. Now due to livestock reductions and U.S. government laws we are forced to rely on commercial foods. This has brought diabetes into our lives due to changes in our diets. Diabetes is the highest among Native people and since the 1970's the price we have paid is illness, loss of land, lifestyle and our heritage.

Today, looking at our young generation, we see that they don't know anything of self sufficiency, carrying on spirituality and religion. This has been taken away from our young people. It is the U.S. government that has been committing human rights violations, civil and religious violations against my people. We as a people don't need permits to pray. It sounds awful silly to get a permit to pray but that is what we are required to do. The U.S. government is using colonialism in our tribe to create conflicts even within the same family, relatives, distant relatives. That is what is happening to my people. The people who have relocated were intimated to relocate. They didn't have a choice.

The U.S. government did a good job lying to my people with verbal promises that they never kept. People ask what happened with the promises you made? What about the ability of our young to build homes for themselves and their families? What about the promises to people that they would have jobs, supermarkets, no harassment? What about the people who reloctaed and never received any relocation benefits at all? My people ask this of the elected officials. What about the water? Our wells run dry and even though we ask for testing because of our concern about uranium contamination of the aquifer, no testing is done and no information is shared with us. We want this testing done.

And today, we, the young people are having kids, becoming parents. Think about the future of our kids and their kids. How are they going to carry on our culture and heritage? I know the government is trying to do away with Dineh culture even as far as saying English only, our young are not being taught their language in schools. The Dineh language helped the U.S. win World War II when Navajos served as Code talkers. And today, as far as modern warriors, Native Americans in the armed forces are very competitive and they are like 4 star generals, the Dineh and a lot of these warriors are making the military their career. As freedom fighters don't we deserve the right to our ancestral land?

Please investigate our concerns, the U.S. government is commiting human rights violations against the Dineh people.

 

 

 

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Rickson Bedonie