The McCain Relocation

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

John McCain was out of the torturous grip of the North Vietnamese for approximately one year when Congress passed Public Law 93-531 in 1974. Public Law 93-531 was called the Relocation Act, and was falsely justified by what “Peabody Coal Company’s public relations and lobbying firms” falsely constructed  as the “Hopi-Navajo land dispute.” This “range war” was not true. What was true, was lawyer John Boyden with the assimilated Hopi Tribal Council.

Source

Boyden formed a Hopi Tribal Council that consisted of several First Mesa Hopi who had been converted to Mormonism, based on an election in which about 10 percent of the Hopis on the reservation voted. The newly elected Tribal Council then hired Boyden as their lawyer.

John Boyden with his assimilated Hopi Tribal Council wanted Peabody Coal to strip mine Black Mesa after the natural resources had been discovered. More than 10,000 Navajo and 100 Hopi did not want Black Mesa stripped.  

Crossposted at Native American Netroots

Boyden’s efforts culminated with the passage of Public Law 93-531, which authorized division of the joint-use area and the relocation of 10,000 Navajos. With the exception of a handful of congressmen and senators who knew of the relationship between Boyden and the Interior, those who voted for P.L. 93-531 were completely ignorant about the Indian situation and trusted the land-dispute story of their colleagues, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater and Congressman Morris Udall. Their story also convinced President Ford, who signed the bill into law in 1974.

Tying this all together is the fact that the corrupt lawyer, John Boyden, had Peabody Coal as a client; hence, “Peabody Coal Company’s public relations and lobbying firms” falsely constructing the so called “Hopi-Navajo land dispute.”

The coal strip-mining on the Hopi reservation is primarily the work of Boyden client Peabody Coal,

(Please remember the difference between a Christian and a fundamentalist with the use of the phrase “assimilated into Christianity”)  

Indigenous People have been assimilated into Christianity and it is no easy subject, for it requires considering a judgment be made that is uncomfortable. A general clarification as well as an example will be given with my opinion before proceeding to McCain’s part in this forced relocation, because the “several First Mesa Hopi who had been converted to Mormonism” needs at least some general clarification before proceeding. Indigenous People in cases like this who have been assimilated into Christianity have also adapted the behaviors of their assimilators. For example, I heard an elder speak of how once they entered Boarding School as an adolescent, the ones who had been assimilated mocked them for speaking the language. How many people’s history has been lost because similar things happened in their own families and now it’s too late to retrieve? Indigenous People who have been assimilated into Christianity have every right to believe as they wish. However, abandoning the fact that in their ancestral lands lie the flesh of their ancestors which is the Earth Mother, they may see no problem fighting their relatives who hold that land sacred. So my uncomfortable judgment is, their replaced beliefs give them no right to act as predators and presumably unknowingly, this is what they assimilate into in cases like this.

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When Christopher Columbus first set foot on the white sands of Guanahani island, he performed a ceremony to “take possession” of the land for the king and queen of Spain, acting under the international laws of Western Christendom. Although the story of Columbus’ “discovery” has taken on mythological proprtions in most of the Western world, few people are aware that his act of “possession” was based on a religious doctrine now known as the Doctrine of Discovery. Even fewer people realize that today –five centuries later– the United States government stil uses this archaic Judeo-Christian doctrine to deny the rights of Native American Indians.

Now, onto John McCain when he entered politics in 1981 in Arizona in relation to the forced relocation. It was easy for him, for it all was set in place. The gun was loaded and all McCain had to do was keep pulling the trigger with S1973-1 and S.1003.

(underline & emphasis mine)

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ACSA has determined that the law in question (25 U.S.C. 640d-11) has been amended many times, since it’s introduction by Congressman Wayne Owens, and signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1974. Among the key amendments introduced by Senator McCain were the organization of a Hopi-Navajo Resettlement Commission (a Commission actually charged with relocating the Dineh-Navaho) and modifying the Settlement allegedly agreed to by the Hopi-Navajo to remove any Dineh who sought sanctuary legally under their membership in the Hopi “parent culture” of all Indians in America.  These and other amendments were introduced by Senator McCain as public law in 1996 through 1999, and some were submitted to the Senate and House in 2005 as PL S.1003,
subsequently incorporated into the language of the 2005 amendment of 25 U.S.C. 40d-11, all to rig the situation for the Senator’s sponsors, Peabody Western Coal Company (Peabody Group today) and Bechtel, who operates the Mohave Generating Station, so they could more easily remove the coal from the Dineh-Navaho’s rightful properties.

Within the legal maneuverings of Senator McCain, the non-existent tribal counsel, called: the “Hopi-Navajo Counsel”, made up of Peabody Group proxies of local Kayenta, Arizona area origin, surfaced false claims of prior ownership and eminent domain, and then successfully testified before the Senate (the Dineh were not invited to testify about their own fate before the Senate by Senator McCain, leading to a hue and cry in 1999)
and demanded the removal of the rightful landowners, the Dineh-Navajo, claiming “encroachment on lands granted us by President Chester A. Arthur.” They demand completion of the removal of the Dineh-Navaho from the Black Mesa and Big Mountain.

Consequently, this rape of the land has enormous implications today.

Source

A delegation of Navajo, Hopi and Lakota warned Lehman Brothers stockholders of the dire consequences of their actions in 2001. In a rare move, censored by most media, the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation warned Lehman Brothers, after it acquired the financial interests of Peabody Coal, of the spiritual consequences of mining coal on sacred Black Mesa and the aftermath of Peabody Coal’s machinations that led to the so-called Navajo Hopi Land Dispute. Lehman Brothers is now in the midst of financial collapse, with its bankruptcy producing a rippling effect throughout the world’s economy.

To conclude, why is this not spoken of in the “main” media or in this election? Here’s why I think so, besides the more obvious reasons.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/…

p. 27.

In listening to the government, it’s clear that the government has not come to terms with the basic principle established in Mitchell II. That where congress gives the Federal Government control of Indian property, that control necessarily implicates trust duties. And violations of trust duties, where the government is exercising responsibilities, within the contours of those statutes and regulations, give rise to a claim for money damages in the Court of Federal Claims. That’s what’s missing.

I’ll let this be the next to last word.

One thing is for certain in my mind; McCain and Palin will not help to build a “bridge to sovereignty” or a “bridge to prosperity” in Indian Country. However, they could likely build a time portal that takes American Indian policy back to the 19th Century.

Here’s the last word from Stuart Heady from comments here.

Email version that is short, for forwarding

The McCain Relocation

“…the largest forced relocation of U.S. citizens since the relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II. I feel that in relocating these elderly people, we are as bad as the Nazis that ran the concentration camps in World War II.”

-Roger Lewis, federally appointed Relocation Commissioner upon resignation.

Many people do not know that a political walnut shuffle game went on for years to confuse people and make it difficult to tell what was really going on, and what was causing a huge amount of grief and hardship for Navajo and Hopi people in Arizona – not in the nineteenth century, but recently.

A key player behind it was John McCain, working to take land from Native Americans for large scale corporate entities that have supported the Arizona politician, all the while portraying himself as a friend to the tribes.

Among groups looking into this, the American Computer Science Association www.acsa2000.net conducted a study revealing “(Public Law 93-531 as amended in 1996 (Partition), 1999 (Settlement), 2001 (Enforcement of Resettlement) and 2005 (Expansion of Resettlement) – bills introduced by Senator McCain – led to the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Hon Abdeltalif Amor’s condemnation of human rights violations inside the US, over the stripping of rights and forced resettlement of these gentle and deeply spiritual band of Dineh-Navajo Indians from Arizona, swept off of lands they’d owned since 1500 A.D. so that Peabody Western Coal could mine the Coal from beneath their farmlands and tap their wells to slurry pipe it to a power station in Nevada)… Common Cause has suggested McCain was indirectly compensated by cash contributions to his Federal Election Fund during three Presidential runs, and through family business with Las Vegas Casinos who benefited from the coal driven power he supplied.”

John McCain claimed legislation was justified by a non-existent range war between the Dine’ and the Hopi.  The Bennet Freeze (P.L.93-531) is well remembered because people living on what is now Hopi Partitioned Land could not legally upgrade their housing (i.e. repair a hole in their roof during the winter) without facing the threat of arrest because they no longer legally own the property their families have lived on for centuries. This type of regular harassment has been described as “low intensity psychological warfare” and it has become commonplace against families resisting relocation at Big Mountain.

Their land was turned over to the coal companies without making any provisions to protect the burial or sacred sites that would be destroyed by the mines. People whose lives were based in their deep spiritual and life-giving relationship with the land were relocated into cities, often without compensation, forbidden to return to the land that their families had occupied for generations. People became homeless with significant increases in alcoholism, suicide, family break up, emotional abuse and death.

John McCain “knows what’s best for America”, and that’s “Straight Talk, my friends”….unless of course you’re a Native American.