BIA ADMITS ECONOMIC WARFARE AGAINST NAVAJO ELDERS
Representatives of the Navajo Nation in Washington D.C.
learned last week that the purpose of recently-intensified
impoundment of Navajo livestock is to coerce Navajo families
into signing a controversial land agreement. "The Bureau's
Attorneys stated on the record that this impoundment is targeted at
Navajo families who are resisting relocation under Public Law 93-
531. They said they were using impoundment to pressure the
families into signing the agreement in principle and the proposed
lease..." which were features of the latest U.S. effort to "settle"
the so-called Navajo-Hopi land dispute.
The "land dispute," which arose from the vague wording of an
1882 presidential executive order creating a reservation for Hopi
and Navajo Indians then sharing the area, was 100 years later the
occasion for a costly and traumatic twenty-year program relocating
Navajos from lands belatedly awarded to the Hopi Tribe. The
stubborn resistance of a core group of about 350 of the most
traditional Dine' (Navajo) families led to a lawsuit (MANYBEADS v.
UNITED STATES) and, in 1991, court-ordered mediation.
The mediation, which included the Navajo Nation and Hopi
Tribes as well a the United States and the traditional Dine'
families, was carried out behind closed doors, mostly in San Diego
and Phoenix. While the federal mediator barred direct
participation by grassroots Dine', he developed a working coalition
with the white attorneys for the United States and the Hopi Tribal
Council. This working coalition pushed through an "Agreement in
Principle" under which the Dine' would remain on their ancestral
lands as tenants for a 75-year period. In return for leasing out
about 1300 acres in small lots scattered over the "disputed lands,"
the Hopi Tribal Council would receive about 500,000 acres of prime
lands in Northern Arizona, purchased by the Navajo Tribe. There
was no provision for renewal of the lease.
When the Hopi Tribe revealed its proposed lease agreement, it
contained numerous open-ended provisions for eviction as well as
draconian restrictions on religion and day-to-day life. It was
actually worse in many ways than the provisions of the Relocation
Act, which at least offer the Dine' families some use rights to
their land while they "await relocation."
The federal mediator ordered the Dine' families to sign the
leases by August 5, 1993. Instead of signing, the families offered
a counterproposal. The Hopi Tribe walked out. The mediator
belatedly began consulting the families to find out what their
objections were to his plan. The Hopi Tribe demanded that BIA
resume impoundments of Dine' livestock, which had been much reduced
during the two-plus years of mediation. The Hopi Tribe itself
began a campaign of selective law enforcement targeting the Dine'
for offense such as "illegal" woodcutting and construction
activities.
In November 1993, the BIA announced that impoundment fees
would be drastically increased. The fees which previously had been
quite high relative to the limited incomes of most Dine' families,
were increased five- to ten-fold. The BIA rangers began daily
raids, forcing families to keep their livestock penned and feed
hay, or risk impoundment. A dozen families have been virtually
bankrupted by this federal tactic.
Ada Deer, the head of the BIA, wrote to the Navajo President
Zah on Dec. 27 that the stepped-up livestock impoundment was simply
a continuation of previous policy, as to the radical increase in
fees, "a similar policy for assessing livestock impoundment fees is
followed throughout Indian country by the Bureau." The part of a
nationwide campaign to protect grazing resources, and was not meant
to affect any one group in particular. In last week's meetings
however, it was learned this is not true.
However, attorneys for the U.S. Solicitor's Office have
frankly admitted that the impoundment was intended to force the
Dine' families to abandon their negotiating position. Learning of
this, Navajo President Peterson Zah sent a letter to Assistant
Secretary of Interior Ada Deer, warning her that the tactic could
backfire.
In his letter, Zah points out: "I often feel that your
advisors are unable to understand the human and Navajo side of this
dispute, and a recommendation to 'turn up the heat' on the families
in order to get them to make more concessions is a fundamental
misreading of what will be necessary to win the trust and the
assent of these families. " He adds "Unfortunately, the stepped
up enforcement is having exactly the opposite effect, and has
deepened the families' suspicions that the purpose of the United
States' participation in the mediation is to have Navajo families
forcibly evicted from their homes."
This is an issue on which the United States has received much
adverse attention form international human rights institutions,
including the United Nations. The current direction taken by the
federal government will almost certainly destroy any chance for a
negotiated settlement. In that case, laws already on the books
provide for what will almost certainly be a massive forced removal
of Native people from their homelands. This is an issue in which
the United States has historically lied about its actions and
intent.
Now, I who write this say: We who work closely with this issue
feel that the problem is due to the influence of mid-level
bureaucrats, holdovers from the Reagan and Bush Administrations,
who are wedded to the concept of extinguishing the traditional
rights and liberties of the Dine'. Even Assistant Secretary Deer's
letter, with its misleading statements, was signed by an aide.
Until the policy-makers of the Clinton Administratioon give this
issue the attention it merits, there is little hope of averting
another human rights tragedy in Indian country. The Dine' families
have been resisting all the pressures the federal government could
bring to bear against them for thirty years. This additional
burden is more likely to kill chances of a settlement than to make
the families submit to feeral demands. There once were more than
five thousand families on the land. The 300 or so left are the
strongest of the strong. We who know them know they will resist.
For more details, or for day-to-day information about this
complex issue, check into the conference gen.nativenet and look for
the NAVAJO-HOPI UPDATES which come out every few days. You may
also contact the Navajo-Hopi Land Commission Office of the Navajo
Nation at (602) 871-6441 and ask for Roman Bitsuie or Jon Norstog.
Letters should be addressed to P.O. Box 2549 Window Rock AZ 86515.
jon norstog
[ This bulletin was posted from the IGC system, based in San Francisco,
California. The "gen.nativenet" conference referred to above is avail-
able only to subscribers of that system. However, it is easy to retrieve
archived articles on this or any subject by means of the LISTSERV archives
maintained on the TAMVM1 system at Texas A & M University. For more
information on this facility, please send a message to the address
"listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu" containing the text:
get nn-intro archives native-l
(note that "tamvm1" contains the numeral "1" and "native-l" has the
letter "l").
--Gary (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us) ]