Monday again, no alarms or word about impoundment all day. It
may be that BIA is going to back off on impoundment, now that it
looks like mediation will continue. I hope this truce, if that's
what it is, holds. Just maybe the worst is over for a while. We'll
see.
ALL-HPL COMMUNITY MEETING AT TEESTO MARCH 19
The Dine' Bikeya Committee decided to call a big meeting for
all the Dine' resisters on March 19 at Teesto. Mary Lucy Joe went
out to Big Mountain and Cactus valley to let people know, and we
will also put out the announcement on KTNN.
Dine' Bikeya wants to see if a counterproposal can be
developed for mediation. There has been a lot of discussion
around, and some communities are looking at a modified lease while
others want land exchange. And some are not going to talk any
more, they say.
The fear is that the government will "divide and conquer" by
settling with some communities, then will issue an ultimatum to the
holdouts: "sign up or else." At the same time though, it is the
different situations and histories of all the various Dine'
communities which are the base for their differences in viewpoint.
Unless Dine' Bikeya can somehow convince the other communities
to follow its lead, there will be differences the U.S. can exploit.
We have talked it over, also had a big staff meeting on it, and the
view of this agency of the Navajo Nation is that the U.S. MUST
recognize communities, and not attempt to negotiate with individual
families. Second whatever settlement comes up should be
comprehensive, and should address the needs of all the Dine'
communities, not just those who are willing to settle for a lease.
I will be there on the 19th and will write a full report.
DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE NOW
John Burrows at the World Center for Indigenous Studies sent
a msg over the weekend that the Center has begun scanning key
documents. At this time he has the Agreement In Principle and the
Navajo Nation's resolution "ratifying" it ready to go. He said he
was working on the "proposed Hopi lease" next.
These documents can be got through FTP. FTP to
ftp.halcyon.com then get into the directory
/pub/FWDP/Americas/Resolutions/Navajo-Hopi ... this looks like a
UNIX directory structure. I haven' tried it yet but will. The
documents are compressed for rapid transfer. For instance, the
Agreement in Principle is a file named agrprin.zip.
I hope that by making these documents widely available, people
will be able to see more clearly how the MANYBEADS mediation got
where it is.
BASKETBALL
People who have not lived on the Navajo reservation are always
surprised at how big basketball is here. Hoops is a cheap game
here just like the inner city,because it doesn't take as much room
or equipment as football, baseball, etc. Needless to say we don't
have much in the way of tennis courts, golf courses or swimming
pools. But hoops are everywhere, there's one on my house too.
The Arizona high school state championships just finished.
Window Rock boys lost their final game in class AAA, 66-52. The
Window Rock Girls won their third straight state championship,
beating another Navajo team, Monument Valley H.S. The St.
Michael's girl's team won their second straight Class A
championship too. It was all in this week's Navajo Times
(2/24/94), with a double page of action photos by Paul Natonabah,
and a half page ad taken out by President Zah congratulating the
teams.
If you like basketball and get the chance, go see the Navajo
teams play. The kids really give it hell, moving with that speed
and grace, it makes me want to cry sometimes to watch. A lot of
the resister kids are ball players too. You go into the houses and
see a whole wall full of trophies the kids have brought back, Jack
Hatathlie's kids were like that, also some of John Yazzie's. From
Teesto, Albert and Rose Francis' grandsons, Sterling and Raymond
Scott BOTH made the state AAA all-star team last year.
Jon Norstog