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DINEH NATION UNDER SEIGE 1998

by Peter Rashid A.
31 July 1998 [COMMUNITAS]

The Navajo People - one of the largest tribes in the Southwest - are forced to repair their houses only at night. It is illegal for them to maintain their traditional housing in the light of day in the United States of America.

The Bennet Freeze, passed in 1964, made new hogan construction or repair illegal at Black Mesa. The people that live there, the Dineh - the original name of the tribe we call Navajo - are today faced with a form of cultural genocide within the Dineh Reservation, 150 mi north of Flagstaff, Arizona.

This US law is one of the building blocks of the current relocation effort pursued by the government via the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and the Peabody Western Coal Company. This relocation and the ones before it have splintered the tribe, making traditions that have carried them thousands of years impossible to maintain. This war against Dineh culture is nothing less than the continuation of the western invasion that began with Columbus over 500 years ago.

This war is highly psychological, and of low-intensity. It depends on constant harassment: trips through the courts, various fines and fees, as well as outright arrests for'trespassing' on their own land. The goal is the removal of the Dineh people from the area defined as their reservation, and the delivering of that land to Peabody, for their coal profits. And the deadline is fast approaching: the BIA has made February 1, 2000 the date by when they will forcibly remove anyone who remains.

Peabody has expanded their coal mining operations at Black Mesa on Dineh land several times, and they have faced no opposition from the Tribal Council; in fact they've had the outright help of the local Tribal Police. They have resisted attempts to indicate sacred areas, and have instead removed the top layers of a majority of the land they now control.

Chris Interpreter, speaking at Michigan State University's campus in February 1998, recounted various incidents of harassment by the local marshalls and rangers, and he told of his people's continuing experience of cultural genocide as practiced by the forces of law and order in this country today.

Listening to his scanner Chris regularly hears a surveillance team, watching him 24-hours a day, describing his every action: "Suspect is chopping wood...suspect is carrying wood into hogan...." This intense pressure is meant to keep him nervous. But he's not. He's pissed. And he's fighting back.

"They told me that according to the 1990 census that no one was on this land. I told them that I did the HPL census. I was the census enumerator. I drew the map, I wrote my name in that area. I wrote my name, my brotherUs name, and my nephew's. They didnUt say anything."

"TheyUre trying to come up with different kinds of excuses. There are only three of us that are still there. Everybody else was relocated."

He has been arrested for "trespassing" on his uncle's land while informing the Hopi Rangers that they could not take the family's livestock. But which were seized anyway. Such is daily life in the middle of the largest forced relocation on Indian people in the 20th century.

"For a country whose founding documents speak of 'We the People,'" explained Chris, "for a nation dedicated to 'democracy'; if these values can be so easily avoided as they are on the Dineh People, then this is not your country anymore. This country has been taken out of your hands. And it's a dangerous job to educate the public [about this]."

Since 1986, when the Dineh waited with dozens of supporters for the National Guard to move against them, relocation has taken different forms. However with the BIA's recent offer of $50,000 to the local Tribal Council to ensure that the last of the Dineh are moved elsewhere by the year 2000, efforts have been stepped up. 'Financial runoff' from Peabody's mines also appears to finance the Hopi Tribal Council's budget to the tune of 65%.

Over 10,000 Dineh have been relocated since 1974, yet thousands still refuse to move from the land that has been their home for well over 18 generations.

Chris and his uncle Lawrence Altsisi continue to resist these efforts. Altsisi speaks of Rangers rounding up sheep when his brother was in for lunch. The Rangers demanded a permit, and declared the one Lawrence had to be expired. They took all thirty sheep, and it cost USD $465/night each to retreive them.

The Peabody Western Coal Company has already stripped over 103 square miles of land in attempts of extract the coal from one of the largest mineral beds in the continental US, and area which may also contain 'valuable' uranium. They have constructed an illegal 275 mile spring-water fed slurry pipeline that carries raw coal ores to their processing plants in Nevada - and drains 1.4 million gal/yr from the local water table, the same water table that fills the wells on Dineh land.

The Tools of the Relocation include:

o   THE BENNET FREEZE (1964) -- A U.S. Court
    ordered 'ban' on housing contruction of
    houses on the land in which the  Dineh
    currently live.

o   THE RELOCATION ACT, Public Law 93-531 --
    Permitted coerced relocation of over 12,000
    Dineh and 100 Hopi

o   THE NAVAHO-HOPI LAND DISPUTE
    SETTLEMENT, Public Law 104-301 (1996) --
    Fabricated a land dispute and sanctioned the
    forced evictions of another 3,000 Dineh.

o   CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE and
    harassment by Tribal Police, including
    impoundment of animals and vehicles and
    exhorbitant retrieval fees.

o   THE ACCOMODATION AGREEMENT --
    a statement deadlined April 1, 1997 giving the
    Dineh two options: agree to remain on 3 acres
    with 1 cow, 1 sheep, 1 goat for 75 years, not
    to be passed to their children; or, face
    removal by BIA paramilitary police & US
    Marshalls. Many did not sign and police
    continue to attempt to get more signatures.

The situation on the land is very tense and has been deteriorating for some time now, and support is needed at many levels but particularly demonstrations in your local area in support of the Dineh.

Land supporters are needed to stay with the families resisting, helping them tend the livestock and act as human right observers. The presence of these observers greatly lessens the harassment the Dineh face. Observers should be prepared to stay for at least a month, and bring notepads and any film or recording equipment. Communications gear, goods & supplies, and researchers are also needed.

In November there will be a Thanksgiving Caravan leaving from Boulder, Colorado and carrying food & supplies out to the Dineh on the land. If you want to get involved, contact the Big Mountain Hotline in Minneapolis at (+1) 612-3652-5964.

The Dineh and supporters are working to have as many people as possible on the land on or before May 1999. Forced relocations at that time are very much a possiblity and the need for observers and a network of resistance is neccessary.

If you can help further or want more information,

Contact:

Twin Cities Dineh Defense Alliance
PO Box 583082, Minneapolis, MN, 55458-3082 USA
Dineh hotline: (612) 362-5964

Sovereign Dineh Nation/Dineh Alliance
PO Box 2889, Window Rock, AZ, 86515 USA
(505) 371-5551
http://www.primenet.com/~sdn


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