To the national news editor & ombudsman,
>
>The Boston Globe story below (1/30/00) outlines what is described as a
>Navajo-Hopi
>intertribal conflict, but omits the larger situation that mandates its
>position
>as a national story.
>
>It does not mention the impact of the approximately 100 square mile strip
>mine run by
>Peabody Coal, the largest coal company in the world.
>
>It does not mention that Peabody's coal delivery system, a slurry
>pipeline that runs 273 miles, is draining the available water resources for
>both the Hopi and Navajo people in the area.
>
>Until the largest coal deposit in the U.S. was discovered on Black Mesa,
>Navajo and Hopi had lived side by side in essential peace for several
>hundred years.
>The Navajo came into the area in the 1500s, not the late 19th century.
>
>It does not mention that presidential candidate John McCain is the
>sponsor of the latest law (1996) mandating forced relocations of U.S.
>citizens--the
>Black Mesa Dine' (Navajo)--some 22 years after the 1974 measure cited in
>the story.
>
>It does not mention that some 14,000 Dine' (Navajo) have already been
>forcibly relocated since 1974, many to a site contaminated by the worst
>radioactive spill in U.S. history.
>
>The facts are abundantly documented and readily obtainable. If you need
>further information, please be in touch.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Carol S. Halberstadt, press contact
>
>email: carol@migrations.com
>Web: www.migrations.com
>_______________________________________________
> Navajo resisters on Hopi reservation face deadline for eviction
>
>By Gary Ghioto, Globe Correspondent, 1/30/2000
> BIG MOUNTAIN, Ariz. - The snowy San Francisco Peaks at their backs and
> the colorful mesas of the Painted Desert sprawling before them, three dozen
> people marched briskly along the breakdown lane of Arizona Highway 89
> yesterday, headed for an uncertain reception on the Hopi reservation
>more than
> 50 miles away.
>
>Buddhist nuns and monks from Japan were joined by Native
> Americans, Europeans, and college students from across the United States
> chanting prayers and carrying traditional peace pipes.
>
>
>
>The walkers, an international delegation of Green Party officials and
>activists fresh from the
> World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle, have been drawn here
>by a
> bitter land dispute that has torn apart Hopis and Navajos for more than a
> century and is heading toward its vexing final stages.
>
>
>
>The protesters
> said their mission is to support some two dozen Navajo families who are
>living
> on disputed Hopi land and face eviction proceedings Tuesday. These mostly
> elderly Navajos insist that they are bound to the land by custom and
> religion.
>
>
>
>''Sometimes we just cry. We look around for our people and
> they're gone,'' said Ida Clinton, a Navajo in her 70s who tends sheep on
>lands
> under Hopi control. ''There's nobody to talk to, nobody to see. We cry. But
> the government doesn't cry, the Hopi doesn't cry.''
>
>
>
>The origins of the
>dispute reach back to the late 19th century, when nomadic Navajo families
> arrived in Hopi country to graze sheep and livestock.
>
>
>
>The Hopi appealed
> to the federal government for help, and in 1882 President Chester Arthur
> created a reservation for the tribe. But Navajos continued to violate the
> boundaries of the Hopi homeland for decades, and the Hopis filed suit in
>1958
> against the Navajo tribe to reestablish reservation borders and regain lost
> land.
>
>
>
>After further disputes, Congress in 1974 passed the Navajo-Hopi
> Settlement Act, which officially partitioned Hopi and Navajo lands. An
> agreement outlining relocation benefits for Navajos leaving Hopi
>property and
> 75-year leases for Navajos wishing to stay were included in legislation
>passed
> in 1996.
>
>
>
>Now, the imminent eviction of those Navajos who didn't accept
> relocation benefits or sign leases has renewed the controversy.
>
>
>
>''I
> think it's a shame for a country calling itself a democracy to do such a
> thing,'' said Eva Goes, a former member of the Swedish Parliament on the
> reservation this week on a fact-finding investigation. ''It's incredible
>that
> in the year 2000 this could happen. This is cultural genocide.''
>
>
>
>Hopi
> leaders said the tribe is being demonized by ''outside agitators'' who know
> nothing about the complicated land dispute or the agreement endorsed by the
> Navajo tribe and the US government four years ago that sought to resolve
>the
> conflict.
>
>
>
>''We are hearing all kinds of stuff,'' said Marlene
> Sekaquaptewa, a Hopi tribe spokeswoman. ''But I think my favorite is
>that we
> have helicopters with guns doing surveillance out there. The Hopi tribe
> doesn't have any helicopters. So there is a little bit of fantasy
>attached to
> this. But the more sensational the stories are, the more attention it gets
> from Europe, Japan and everywhere else.''
>
>
>
>The allegations of misdeeds
> infuriate Hopis, who are outnumbered by Navajos 250,000 to 11,000. Hopi
> officials said they have quietly endured the loss of their ancestral
>lands to
> encroaching settlement by Navajos for generations, and are now
>reclaiming them
> as the result of negotiations with the US government and Navajo
> officials.
>
>
>
>Though Tuesday is the legal eviction date, the tribes have
> asked the US attorney's office in Phoenix to pursue a court order to
>have the
> Navajos evicted by US marshals within the next six months to two years.
>Navajo
> and Hopi officials and the US attorney's office hope that outsiders who
>have
> been urged over the Internet to protest the evictions will stay away and
>that
> activists already on the reservation will leave.
>
>
>
>''There has been a lot
> of misinformation that people are going to be physically evicted,'' said
> Assistant US Attorney Joseph Lodge. ''That is not going to
> happen.''
>
>
>
>But several activist networks, such as Black Mesa Indigenous
> Support of Flagstaff, established to fight the relocation program and
>provide
> daily living assistance for dozens of elderly resisters, say harassment and
> pressure on the resisters will probably continue after the
>deadline.<BR><BR>To
> counter such pressure, activists have been using the Internet and magazines
> including the Earth First! Journal, to seek volunteers to come to the
> reservation and help the resisters by cooking, doing chores, and providing
> spiritual support.<
>
>
>
>Timothy Benedict and Christopher Annear, both in
> their mid-20s, are volunteering to help a small settlement of Navajo
>resisters
> get through the winter by hauling in food, kerosene, and feed for sheep
>to the
> land shared by Ida Clinton, her sister Eleanor, and brother Gene,
>located more
> than 80 miles northeast of Flagstaff.
>
>
>
>The settlement of houses,
> makeshift barns, sheds, and vegetable fields lies in a splendid
>landscape of
> towering buttes, eroded mountains and vast sagebrush valley.
>
>
>
>Ancient
> petroglyphs mark a nearby cliff wall, and a sacred mountain is nearby where
> Ida Clinton wished to bury her husband, Alvin, a medicine man, but was
> prevented from doing so when it became Hopi property two years
> ago.
>
>
>
>Annear, a graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, joined the
> resisters after a two-year stint in the Peace Corps based in
> Zambia.
>
>
>
>''We're really talking about a people losing a culture, a way
> of life that has existed for certainly much longer than what we call the
> American way of life,'' he said, hauling a bag of feed out of the back of a
> battered pickup truck.
>
>
>
>To the Hopi, the arrival of the activists on
> their sacred mesas as they begin the annual religious ceremony of
>Powamuya is
> cause for alarm. In February, the Hopis say the Kachinas - spirits of life
> forces, minerals, plants, birds, stars, and the dead - will leave their
>home
> on the San Francisco Peaks and come to the mesas.
>
>
>
>Lately the Hopis have
> fought back against allegations they are persecuting the Navajo
>resisters and
> issued a blistering statement to the United Nations for investigating
>claims
> of human rights violations.
>
>
>
>''Words like genocide and ethnocide have
> been thrown around loosely by the resister Navajos and outsiders in
>attempts
> to bring sympathy to the circumstances to the Navajo resisters,'' said
>Cedric
> Kuwaninvaya, a tribal official. ''To accuse and put one tribe down in
>order to
> elevate another is simply wrong and abusive.''
>
>
>
>The Hopis recently hired
> a Phoenix public relations firm to counter bad press concerning the
> controversy. A media piece outlining the land dispute notes that the Hopi
> homeland has diminished from over 18 million acres to just 1.6 million
> acres.
>
>
>
>Tension on the Hopi reservation increased this weekend when
> officials of six Hopi villages released a statement advising anyone
>coming to
> support the Navajo resisters by occupying Hopi lands to cancel their plans
> immediately. Those already here should leave immediately, said the
> officials.
>
>
>
>''Your presence on our land is nothing less than an
> occupation which we view as hostile and an insensitive act against the Hopi
> people,'' the statement said. ''The month of February is a deeply religious
> and significant time for all Hopi and not a time for adversarial
> behavior.''
>
>
>
>On Friday at the well-worn activity room at the Hard Rocks
> Chapter House, deep inside disputed Hopi-Navajo lands in remote northeast
> Arizona, elderly Navajo resisters told their stories to about 20 activists
> from across the nation and the world.
>
>
>
>Goes and colleague Eva Britt
> Karlsson, member of the Left Party of Sweden, videotaped testimony from 20
> Navajo resisters who said they have been harassed by federal and Hopi
> authorities urging them to relocate. They spoke of their love of their
> traditional homes and farms, and their sadness and isolation.
>
>
>
>To the Hopis, the onslaught of activists and propaganda portraying them as
>villains
> is disheartening, but they intend to move forward to claim their ancestral
> lands.
>
>
>
>''The Hopi people will not give up more land,'' said a letter
> from six Hopi village leaders released Friday. ''We have already lost too
> much.''
>
>
>
>This story ran on page A26 of the Boston Globe on 1/30/2000.
>
>
>

-- Carol S. Halberstadt, Migrations (carol@migrations.com)
Native American art and crafts
http://www.migrations.com

"A generation goes, and a generation comes, and the earth abides forever."
(Ecclesiastes 1:4)