DINE'H REMOVAL ACCOMMODATES PEABODY COAL
Traditional Dine'h (Navajo) remaining on the Hopi Partition Land (lands designated for Hopi by Congress in 1974) in Ari-zona are enduring increased harassment and hardship as their livestock are impounded, their housing repairs are cited, and other measures are taken against them to force them to move. They need helpers, living supplies, and legal funds. Dine'h "non-signers" have recently received notices that their housing repairs are illegal, with orders to dismantle or risk demolition. Any construction or repairs on the HPL has been forbidden since 1966.
Those Dine'h who refuse to sign "AA" leases or to relocate are being targeted for forced eviction by the United States government. As tenants on the HPL, they would give up many of their rights to due process and to lands their ancestors have lived on for many centuries. By US law, their only option is to move to "New Lands" polluted by a uranium tailing spill.
Eviction hearings will start in Phoenix sometime after February 1, 2000, but in the meantime, harsh living conditions make staying on the HPL difficult to continue.
Despite a return of rain this summer, Bureau of Indian Affairs "Rangers" continue to forcibly impound Dine'h subsistence herds of sheep and cattle, the stated reason being to stop overgrazing of the grassy steppes. Wood and wood-cutting tools are confiscated on sight, and harvesting is restricted by permits that are rarely granted, even for ceremonial use. Wood is necessary for traditional Dine'h who cook and heat their modest hogans using wood stoves. They also need wood for the sweatlodge and other ceremonies, which Dine'h are conducting more often as their next "deadline" approaches. Permits are required even to gather to pray.
The United States Office of Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation maintains the reason for forced relocation is that the two tribes are in a dispute over the land, which traditionals from both tribes deny, saying Dine'h removal is to clear the land for expanded strip mining by Peabody Coal Company.
The Bennett Freeze on construction and repairs went into effect the day after the coal mine leases were approved by the Department of the Interior in 1966. The Black Mesa and Kayenta coal mines have been in operation since.
The "New Lands" were appropriated for relocation by Congress in 1980. The previous year, a uranium mill dam broke, and United Nuclear Corporation released 1,100 tons of sludge and 94 million gallons of mining effluent into the Rio Puerco, which travelled downstream from New Mexico into Arizona, past the relocation sites and into the Little Colorado River.
ONHIR is building relocation housing on the "New Lands" for the Dine'h, which must be completed and approved by the Department of the Interior before evictions can be enforced. People all over the world are holding protests, fundp;raisers, prayer vigils, and writing letters to government officials to stop forced evictions and uphold Dine'h human rights.
After February 1, 2000, the Department of Justice will seek court orders to evict Dine'h non-signers, enforced by a multi-jurisdictional police task force. Dine'h non-signers and their extended families challenging evictions in the United States District Court in Phoenix will need travel, room and board resources and arrangements, and legal funds for hearings.
Other legal efforts to stop forced relocation include a religious freedom class-action lawsuit, Manybeads v. United States et al. Hearings in 1998 were held at Black Mesa, Arizona, in an investigation of United States religious intolerance by a Special Rapporteur for the United Nations, with ongoing efforts in the Human Rights Commission for the Prevention of Discrimination Against Minorities, by the Working Group for Indigenous Populations. Manybeads and UN actions could take years.
To help with funds and logistics for eviction hearings in Phoenix, to help with chores, wood, or food, to write letters and protest, or for more information, contact Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon ("ISCO") at (541) 683-2789 or <isco@efn.org> or write to P. O. Box 11715, Eugene, OR 97440.
BIA THREATENS DINE'H ELDER
Sunday, August 22, 1999, R. Honyumpewa, Hopi BIA Ranger G-684BS and Ranger G-495BV accosted Dine'h elder Rena Babbitt Lane. Rena has been keeping her sheep on Navajo Partition Land (NPL) since she and her animals are considered illegal. However, there was a pool of water that accumulated from a recent rainfall just inside the Hopi Partition Land (HPL) fence, and she went with them through a gate to allow them to drink the water. BIA Ranger Honyumpewa came up to her and told her, "Your sheep are trespassing. I do not want you to herd sheep on this side of the fence (HPL). I will be back to check on them, and if you take your sheep here for water again today, I will come back with 2 trailers this evening or tomorrow and load up all your sheep."
Rena says, "This fence was not made by the Hopi or BIA, it was made by Navajo and was not intended to be used as a boundary marker for a partition fence. I did not cut the fence. I used a gate that was there, and I was with my sheep the whole time. I just wanted them to have water. There is so much hardship out here. It is getting us sick and is causing a lot of heartache. I have to haul water, going off the mountain every day when I live right above the slurry pipeline, and three million gallons of water a day flow beneath my land. But I have no water, not for me and not for my sheep. I am afraid of what the Hopi BIA will do to me."
Last winter, 13 armed BIA and Hopi police confiscated Rena Babbitt Lane's horse from her corral. She has a heart condition, wears a pace maker, and has sustained broken fingers by BIA Rangers in the past, including being thrown in an impoundment trailer with enough force to shut the gate on her back. She used to have a house, but the Hopi Rangers destroyed it and put a barbed wire fence in, denying her access. Rangers and police have also confiscated her wood and truck carrying wood.
Please call Wendell Honannie, Acting Superintendent, US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Hopi Agency, (520) 738-2249. Tell him to stop committing elder abuse. Water is a right, not a privilege.