From: Black Mesa Projects/ ISCO <bigmnt@efn.org>

PO Box 11715 Reply: isco@efn.org
Eugene, OR 97440 Run Thru: 11-30-99

Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon Contact: Beth N
====================================== (541) 683-2789 Voice Mail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 1, 1999

PRESS RELEASE: Oregon Protesters call for American Indian Human Rights
=======================================================================

Portland- Oregonian supporters of traditional Dine'h (Navajo) facing
forced evictions gathered at the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in
Portland today to deliver a resolution and hold banners to passing
traffic. Dine'h families who won't sign leases or relocate from sacred
ancestoral lands face eviction hearings in Phoenix sometime after February
1, 2000. Supporters are calling for human rights in the United States.

Beth Newberry, President of the Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon
delivered a copy of the "Peoples' Resolution for the Dine'h of Black Mesa
to the United States of America" to Stanley Speaks, Director of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs (BIA) in a symbolic gesture to express the demands of
the 310 signers from all over the United States for justice in Arizona.

The resolution outlines complaints about the "genocidal forced removal and
ecocidal coal strip-mining" affecting the Dine'h who have lived for
centuries on lands designated for Hopi by Congress in 1974. Both tribes
shared the area since before the Spaniards arrived in the region, and some
traditional Hopi agree with their Dine'h neighbors that the United States
and energy corporations are behind plans to divide and remove them.

The resolution calls for repeal of PL 93-531 and PL 104-301, reparations
and accountability by the United States. It states, "We have gone to the
United States Congress, the US District Court, the Ninth US Circuit Court
of Appeals, the Department of Interior Administrative Court, and the
United Nations Commission for Human Rights. We continue these efforts."

November 1st marks 90 days until the end of the trial period for the
"Accommodation Agreement" leases mandated for Dine'h to remain on Hopi
Partition Lands under PL 104-301. Their only option under the law is to
apply for relocation benefits by that date and move to the "New Lands".

Dine'h who refuse to sign leases, giving up many of their rights, or to
relocate from the HPL, face possible forced evictions by the United States
Department of Justice, who are currently under investigation themselves
for their role in the fatal fire at the Branch Dividian Compound at Waco,
Texas. Supporters are concerned that the "New Lands" site may still be
contaminated from a uranium mill tailing spill upriver the Rio Puerco in
1979, and that the US Justice Department may use violence in evictions.

Copies of the resolution were also mailed to Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of
Interior which oversees the BIA and ONHIR; Kevin Gover, Secretary of
Indian Affairs; Christopher Bavasi, Executive Director of the United
States Government Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation (ONHIR);
President Clinton; Attorney General Janet Reno and Assistant Attorney
General Eric Holder of the United States Department of Justice, all
agencies involved with removing the Dine'h, and Senator John McCain who
sponsored PL 104-301, the law requiring AA leases or Dine'h evictions.

November 1st is also Dio de Los Muertos, a day to remember and honor dead
ancestors. Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon calls for Peabody Coal
Company to stop the destruction of Dine'h and Hopi burials at the coal
strip mines at Black Mesa and Kayenta, just north of the Hopi Partition
Lands in Arizona. ISCO also delivered a letter to the Bonneville Power
Administration asking them to participate in regional wind power site
planning using map overlays to find a better location for PGEnron's
proposed 15,000 acre wind industrial park. ISCO and other groups and
Native Americans are concerned development would disturb Indian burials
and other sacred areas in the Columbia Hills near Goldendale Washington.

 

-0-

 

 

 

From: Black Mesa Projects/ ISCO <bigmnt@efn.org>

PO Box 11715 Reply: isco@efn.org
Eugene, OR 97440 Run Thru: 11-30-99

Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon Contact: Beth N
====================================== (541) 683-2789 Voice Mail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 1, 1999

PRESS RELEASE: Oregon Protesters call for American Indian Human Rights
=======================================================================

Portland- Oregonian supporters of traditional Dine'h (Navajo) facing
forced evictions gathered at the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in
Portland today to deliver a resolution and hold banners to passing
traffic. Dine'h families who won't sign leases or relocate from sacred
ancestoral lands face eviction hearings in Phoenix sometime after February
1, 2000. Supporters are calling for human rights in the United States.

Beth Newberry, President of the Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon
delivered a copy of the "Peoples' Resolution for the Dine'h of Black Mesa
to the United States of America" to Stanley Speaks, Director of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs (BIA) in a symbolic gesture to express the demands of
the 310 signers from all over the United States for justice in Arizona.

The resolution outlines complaints about the "genocidal forced removal and
ecocidal coal strip-mining" affecting the Dine'h who have lived for
centuries on lands designated for Hopi by Congress in 1974. Both tribes
shared the area since before the Spaniards arrived in the region, and some
traditional Hopi agree with their Dine'h neighbors that the United States
and energy corporations are behind plans to divide and remove them.

The resolution calls for repeal of PL 93-531 and PL 104-301, reparations
and accountability by the United States. It states, "We have gone to the
United States Congress, the US District Court, the Ninth US Circuit Court
of Appeals, the Department of Interior Administrative Court, and the
United Nations Commission for Human Rights. We continue these efforts."

November 1st marks 90 days until the end of the trial period for the
"Accommodation Agreement" leases mandated for Dine'h to remain on Hopi
Partition Lands under PL 104-301. Their only option under the law is to
apply for relocation benefits by that date and move to the "New Lands".

Dine'h who refuse to sign leases, giving up many of their rights, or to
relocate from the HPL, face possible forced evictions by the United States
Department of Justice, who are currently under investigation themselves
for their role in the fatal fire at the Branch Dividian Compound at Waco,
Texas. Supporters are concerned that the "New Lands" site may still be
contaminated from a uranium mill tailing spill upriver the Rio Puerco in
1979, and that the US Justice Department may use violence in evictions.

Copies of the resolution were also mailed to Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of
Interior which oversees the BIA and ONHIR; Kevin Gover, Secretary of
Indian Affairs; Christopher Bavasi, Executive Director of the United
States Government Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation (ONHIR);
President Clinton; Attorney General Janet Reno and Assistant Attorney
General Eric Holder of the United States Department of Justice, all
agencies involved with removing the Dine'h, and Senator John McCain who
sponsored PL 104-301, the law requiring AA leases or Dine'h evictions.

November 1st is also Dio de Los Muertos, a day to remember and honor dead
ancestors. Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon calls for Peabody Coal
Company to stop the destruction of Dine'h and Hopi burials at the coal
strip mines at Black Mesa and Kayenta, just north of the Hopi Partition
Lands in Arizona. ISCO also delivered a letter to the Bonneville Power
Administration asking them to participate in regional wind power site
planning using map overlays to find a better location for PGEnron's
proposed 15,000 acre wind industrial park. ISCO and other groups and
Native Americans are concerned development would disturb Indian burials
and other sacred areas in the Columbia Hills near Goldendale Washington.

 

-0-