Still, Forced Navajo Relocation at Big Mountain Continues

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Vine Deloria Jr. in God Is Red uses the self explanatory phrases, “spiritual owners of the land” and “political owners of the land.” Now, it is the “political owners of the land” who have taken tribal lands by conquest and yet distort the historical record.

Three members from the Hopi Tribe arrived to give their testimonies as show support for their neighbors, The Dine. Their presence dispelled the public relations myth that the traditional Hopi and the Dine are involved in a Range War.”

Crossposted at Native American Netroots

Distorting the historical record is done by the executioners of history. Consequently, “it is the job of thinking people… to not be on the side of the executioners.”

By Dan Katchongva, Sun Clan (Ca. 1865-1972) Translated by Danaqyumptewa

At the present time we face the danger that we might lose our land entirely. Through the influence of the United States Government, some people of Hopi ancestry have organized what they call the Hopi Tribal Council, patterned according to a plan devised by the Government, for the purpose of negotiating directly with the Government and with private businesses. They claim to act in the interests of the Hopi people, despite the fact that they ignore the existing traditional leaders, and represent only a small minority of the people of Hopi blood. Large areas of our land have been leased, and this group is now accepting compensation from the Indian Claims Commission for the use of 44,000,000 acres of Hopi land. This is in error, for we laid our aboriginal claim to all of this land long before the newcomers ever set foot upon it. We do not recognize man-made boundaries. We true Hopi are obligated to the Great Spirit never to cut up our land, nor to sell it. For this reason we have never signed any treaty or other document releasing this land. We have protested all these moves, but to no avail.

Now this Tribal Council was formed illegally, even according to whiteman’s laws. We traditional leaders have disapproved and protested from the start. In spite of this they have been organized and recognized by the United States Government for the purpose of disguising its wrong-doings to the outside world. We do not have representatives in this organization, nor are we legally subject to their regulations and programs. We Hopi are an independent sovereign nation, by the law of the Great Spirit, but the United States Government does not want to recognize the aboriginal leaders of this land. Instead, he recognizes only what he himself has created out of today’s children in order to carry out his scheme to claim all of our land.

Because of this, we now face the greatest threat of all, the actual loss of our cornfields and gardens, our animals and wild game, and our natural water supply, which would put an end to the Hopi way of life. At the urging of the Department of the Interior of the United States, the Tribal Council has signed several leases with an outside private enterprise, the Peabody Coal Company, allowing them to explore our land for coal deposits, and to strip-mine the sacred mesas, selling the coal to several large powerplants. This is part of a project intended to bring heavy industry into our area against our wishes. We know that this will pollute the fields and grazing lands and drive out the wildlife. Great quantities of water will be pumped from beneath our desert land and used to push coal through a pipe to a powerplant in another state (Nevada). The loss of this water will affect our farms as well as the grazing areas of the animals. It also threatens our sacred springs, our only natural source of water, which we have depended upon for centuries.

So, the “spiritual owners of the land,” or “the side of the executioners -”

American Activism too Privileged & Bogged: Europeans Maintain Efforts for Big Mountain

“The BIA Indian police are intensifying their daily presence and intimidations. They have graded the main dirt roads that allows them to be on constant patrol..”I think that they will be rounding up Dineh-owned cattle and horses. It is pretty likely that there will be livestock impoundments or confiscation… Indian police operating out of the Hopi reservation do not have any real commanding-authority..”

I know what side I’m on,

Obama: Stop the Peabody Mine Expansion on Black Mesa

Dear Mr. President Barrack Obama, and

Madame Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton,

Copies to:

Mrs. Katherine Smith & Mrs. Pauline Whitesinger, Big Mountain Sovereign Dineh,

Selected Kimongwis of the Independent Pueblo of Hotevilla,

Mr. William Means & Ms. Andrea Carmen, International Indian Treaty Council,

President Joe Shirley, Jr., The Navajo Nation,

Mr. Roman Bitsuie, The Navajo-Hopi Land Commission,

Office of the Hopi Tribe’s Office of Hopi Lands,

Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Phoenix Area Agency

Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining

REPEAL “THE NAVAJO-HOPI LAND SETTLEMENT ACT OF 1974” (P.L. 93-531): IT ENFORCES THE METHODS OF GENOCIDE BY POPULATION REMOVAL AND COAL MINING EXPANSIONS

and what side I’m not.

John McCain in on the record as saying, “the reason why the office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation was created originally, was because of the belief that the BIA couldn’t handle it.” Interesting, because the beginning of this video shows the BIA impounding cattle.

What year was that? The “BIA couldn’t handle” what McCain?

What’s more interesting, is this.

There is hereby established as an independent entity in the

executive branch the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation which

shall be under the direction of the Commissioner on Navajo and Hopi

Relocation (hereinafter in this subchapter referred to as the

“Commissioner”).

– snip –

(1)(A) Except as otherwise provided by the Navajo and Hopi Indian

Relocation Amendments of 1988, the Commissioner shall have all the

powers and be responsible for all the duties that the Navajo and Hopi

Indian Relocation Commission had before November 16, 1988.

Oh look, “The Commissioner, no the Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation office, no, the U.S. government with McCain at the helm in the relevant timeline, the U.S. Mining company security personnel, Peabody Coal’s bulldozers, armed rangers, and the BIA shall have all the powers and be responsible for all the duties that the Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation Commission ??????? had before November 16, 1988.”

Confused yet? That’s what this “legislation” was supposed to do. It was supposed to hide McCain’s involvement to steal land, and the violations of human rights remains hidden as well to the overall public. “In 1996, Congress passed a law endorsing a 75-year lease arrangement that would allow a few of the families to remain as tenants on the land. The law sanctions the relocation of families not eligible for these leases and forces the families who sign the leases to live without benefit of civil and religious rights exercised by other Americans” the UN told us. Also, PL 104-301 tells us that “the number of homesites available for lease is 112,” yet adds, “additional homesites may be made

available subject to agreement between the Hopi Tribe and homesite applicant.” Quite generous in light of the forced relocation of at least (edited in) 10,000 Navajos. One forced relocation is a tragedy, but apparently 10,000 or more is just a statistic. The UN also told us about the loss of voting rights, the physical harassment of elders, intimidation tactics, that armed rangers visited elders at their homes and stole their property, and that their sacred sites were bulldozed – including their graveyards.