--Gary (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us) ]
> CLINTON SIGNS NAVAJO-HOPI PACT TO END CENTURY-OLD FIGHT
> The Associated Press Arizona Daily Star, Saturday 12 October 1996
>
> President Clinton yesterday signed legislation intended to end a
> decades-old land dispute in Northern Arizona between the Navajo and the
> Hopi Indian tribes.
>
> Under the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act, the Hopis agreed to drop
> several lawsuits against the federal government and allow about 250
> Navajo families to remain on Hopi land under 75-year leases with
> conditions.
The Struggle at Big Mountain Is Part of A Global Movement
by Stefan Wray
October 14, 1996
President Clinton's signing of S.1973, The Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute
Settlement Act of 1991, on October 11, 1996, once again brings the
indigenous land struggle at Big Mountain, Arizona into the foreground. The
new legislation brings the imminence of forced relocation of a remaining
3,000 Dineh people to center stage. There is a December 31, 1996 deadline
by which time traditional elders at Big Mountain must sign a repressive
lease agreement or move off the land. One of the central provisions of
this new law is to give the Hopi Tribal Council jurisdiction over the Big
Mountain area and the right to employ its Hopi Rangers in the relocation
process.
The struggle at Big Mountain has a long history, beginning when the
Navajo first signed a treaty with the U.S. government in the 1840s. In
recent times the fight over native sovereignty of the Dineh people has
been and on-again-off-again battle since the mid 1970s. In 1974, 10,000
indigenous people were removed from their ancestral land by a combined
effort of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Hopi Tribal Council. This
action and subsequent threats to the complete relocation of the Dineh
prompted the creation of a Big Mountain Support Network in the 1980s that
included local Big Mountain groups in about 40 U.S. cities.
The issues are complicated. Some would have us believe that what has
been happening at Big Mountain is an intertribal affair. This is because
the Hopi Tribal government backs the Dineh's relocation and in fact will
use its Hopi police force, the Hopi Rangers, as the first line of offense
against the Dineh. (The ATF awaits as the rear guard.) But, on closer
examination the real forces pushing for the Dineh's removal are the
economic interests of Peabody Coal, a subsidiary of an English based
transnational corporation. [ I assume the "ATF" referred to above is the
U.S. "Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms" force. --Gary ]
The struggle at Big Mountain is against the implementation of
genocide, against the violation of human rights, against the disregard for
native sovereignty, against the suppression of indigenous autonomy,
against the onset of environmental destruction, against the continuation
of racism, against the degradation of women and against attacks on old
people. Although in the past people have framed local Big Mountain
broader terms - like comparing it to the struggle of the Palestinians for
their own land - since government attempts at relocation seem imminent it
is useful to revisit the issues at Big Mountain with an eye to other
recent related struggles.
The Dineh's resistance at Big Mountain, the movement of the
Zapatistas in Chiapas, the struggle of the Ogoni in Nigeria, and the
battles being waged by the Amungme against Freeport McMoRan in Irian Jaya
(Indonesia) share common aspects that are worth exploring. By making these
connections we can see each struggle as intricately linked to broader
global resistance.
Land, the right of an indigenous people to maintain control over and
live unhindered on their ancestral land is an obvious shared element to
the struggle at Big Mountain and to these related movements. Forced
relocation or removal of a people off their land can be traced back to the
enclosure of the commons in England. The stealing by capital of autonomous
space, the destruction of self activity, is a thread found throughout the
history of capitalism that dates back to its founding in the transition
from feudalism to capitalism when, for example, in England people were
forcibly removed from their land to make way for great estates. The
removal or push of people off ejidos in Mexico with the elimination of
Article 27 from the Mexican Constitution - coinciding with NAFTA - is
clearly one of the big factors behind the Zapatista uprising. Just as
during the period of enclosures in England 500 years ago, in Chiapas now,
and in Big Mountain, and in Brazil, it is often through first a
legislative or regulatory manner that this push off the land begins. A
combined military and police force usually follows. In the case of Big
Mountain, the Hopi Tribal Council under the direction of the BIA has its
own armed force waiting should mere rules and regulations not force people
to move. In Mexico private thugs hired by large landowners ensure that
peasant's access to land is restricted. The Nigerian regime is brutal
against the Ogoni as is the Indonesian regime against the Amungme.
[ Questions have been raised in past articles in this discussion concerning
whether the disputed territory actually does represent the ancestral land
of the Dineh (Navajo) people. To see copies of some previous articles on
this subject, including a bibliography of printed materials, please go to
"http://bioc02.uthscsa.edu/~gst/nl/navajo-hopi.html" via the Web. --Gary ]
Other common threads that runs through Big Mountain, Chiapas,
Nigeria, and Indonesia are the mineral resources in the ground and the
economic interests of powerful transnational corporations. At Big Mountain
the resource is coal. The interested party is Peabody Coal. In Chiapas
there is oil, and although Pemex - Mexico's national oil company - still
maintains authority over that oil, strong interest in the seemingly
inevitable privatization of that state owned enterprise comes from a
number of U.S. and European oil companies. In Indonesia the highly valued
commodities under the ground are copper and gold. The interested party is
a Louisiana headquartered company named Freeport McMoRan. In Nigeria,
again the sought after resource is oil, controlled by the oil giant Shell.
Just as Shell essentially controls the Nigerian government and as Freeport
McMoRan has influence over the Indonesian government, so too does Peabody
Coal wield power and influence and the promise of money over the Hopi
Tribal and Navajo Tribal governments. (Referring to the Big Mountain
struggle as an intertribal dispute is analogous to calling the conflicts
between the Ogoni and Amungme peoples and the governments of Nigeria and
Indonesia as part of an intertribal dispute. It is not. It is a dispute
about economic and political power.)
Mineral resources beneath the earth's surface - coal, copper, gold,
and oil - and the economic interest in these resources by large
transnational corporations at the expense of the indigenous peoples are
common aspects to Big Mountain, Chiapas, Nigeria, and Indonesia. Another
commonalty is the environmental devastation that comes from extracting
these resources. Not directly at Big Mountain, but nearby on other parts
of indigenous land are uranium mines. Besides all the toxic waste produced
along every step of the nuclear fuel cycle, uranium mine tailings causes
incredible damage to watersheds and natural systems in the immediate
surroundings of the mines. Some of the Dineh people relocated at an
earlier time were moved to what was effectively a uranium toxic waste
site. In Chiapas, and even more so in neighboring Tabasco, environmental
degradation has been an ongoing result of the oil industry. A similar
situation occurs in Nigeria where the Ogoni have brandished charges
against Shell for its ecological malfeasance.
For activists in the United States the difference between Big
Mountain and these allied struggles in Mexico, Nigeria, and Indonesia is
that Big Mountain exists here inside the confines of the United States.
Nigeria and Indonesia are far away, making travel difficult. Mexico is
much closer and some of us have gone there. But Big Mountain is within
several days drive from major metropolitan centers in the west, southwest,
and midwest. Our presence there may make an important difference.
This author has not yet heard a specific call for people to go to Big
Mountain en masse at the end of this year. Yet it seems likely, given
Clinton's signing of S.1973 and the December 31 deadline, there will be
some action plan. There are, however, people in California and others
spearheading a Thanksgiving Food Drive to Big Mountain. This might be an
opportunity for activists around the country to go there for face-to-face
discussions of proposals for responding to forced relocation.
On a local level in Austin it is important to reinvigorate interest
now in the Big Mountain land struggle. Because the basic issues of Big
Mountain are similar to the other related struggles mentioned above, it is
natural that groups such as Accion Zapatista and Earth First! (which focus
on Mexico and Indonesia indigenous movements) would begin concentrating on
raising awareness of Big Mountain and be prepared to mobilize people to go
there if or when there is an action call. There are also groups like
Pastors for Peace and Food Not Bombs that may be interested directly in
the Thanksgiving Big Mountain Food Drive. The existence of these and other
groups in Austin clearly demonstrates the possibility for the rapid
creation of an ad hoc coalitional effort to focus energy on the Big
Mountain issue. Should this occur swiftly here, and in communities around
the United States, then if or when there is a call for action at Big
Mountain at the end of the year, we could see thousands of people
converging there.
If there were a large gathering of people at Big Mountain on January
1, 1997, it would coincide with gatherings of people in Mexico to
celebrate the third anniversary of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. We
could concretely link the indigenous land struggles of Big Mountain and
with those in Chiapas and elsewhere in Mexico by acknowledging and naming
the shared aspects of these struggles. Big Mountain is only a few hundred
miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. It could be conceived of as a northern
front in the Zapatista's global battle for autonomy and self
determination.
A collective push to work on Big Mountain is also a way to bring an
immediate target into focus for Earth First!'s End Corporate Dominance
campaign. Peabody Coal is the clear culprit and benefactor of forced
relocation of the Dineh. Making Peabody Coal a collective object of the
ECD campaign over the course of the next two months would help gather the
forces of resistance against relocation and at the same time strengthen
the ECD campaign by forming stronger alliances.
Just because S.1973 quietly slipped through the Senate and the House
and was signed by Clinton unnoticed doesn't mean that the December 31
deadline will pass by quietly and unnoticed. Just as the rapid mobilization
around Mumia Abu Jamal in the summer of 1995 shows, we are capable of moving
fast when we need to. Now is one of those times.
The Indian wars that began out west in the 1800s continue to this
day. The land struggle at Big Moutain is part of a historical process of
colonialization that has its roots dating back to when the first white
people stepped on to this continent. The time for this process to end is
past due.