Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

The honorable Senator John McCain announced his candidacy for President of the United States of America on Monday, September 27, 1999, 11:45 a.m. at Greeley Park in Nashua, New Hampshire. Senator McCain needs to know that this is a hot issue and we'll follow him until he gives justice to the grandmothers of Black Mesa.

Below is the text of the leaflet that was given out yesterday, over 1,000 copies, at a demonstration at the Borders Bookstore in downtown Boston, where Senator McCain was signing his new book. Demonstrators included a representative of the Boston Indian Council, interns from Cultural Survival, as well as other demonstrators from local area colleges and businesses. We let McCain know that we, as the greater American public, across ethnic and generational lines, are outraged at what McCain and the federal government are doing to the Dineh (Navajo) of Black Mesa.

Rich Conckrell, New Hampshire Campaign Field Representative, said that the message would be given to Senator McCain. A copy of the leaflet (text below) can be obtained by calling Cockrell, phone: 603-626-0800.

Sponsoring Genocide: Senator John McCain's Final Solution

Rena Babbitt Lane is a Dineh (Navajo) elder living on land on Black Mesa in Arizona that has been inhabited by her Dineh ancestors for many centuries. Living without electricity or running water, she and her husband sustain a profoundly traditional life, and survive by raising sheep, weaving rugs from their wool, and growing a few crops. On Tuesday, September 21, 1999, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agents raided her homesite and confiscated 17 sheep, 3 goats, and 6 cows. She was weaving and preparing a meal at the time, and did not even know the BIA was there until later, when all her animals did not come home. She saw the tracks of two impoundment trailers and a police vehicle where they had been grazing, and knew they had been taken away. When she went to the BIA offices the next day, they served her with papers stating that the rest of her livestock will be confiscated in five days (Tuesday, September 28). The BIA is confiscating without compensation everything she owns, leaving her to die in the harsh winter soon to follow. If she survives until spring without her livestock, she will be forcibly relocated to the "New Lands," an area that was contaminated by the largest spill of nuclear waste in US history. Rena Babbitt Lane, who is in her late seventies, was severely injured-her hand broken-in a previous livestock impoundment. She has undergone surgery for a heart condition, and wears a pacemaker.

The BIA offered her one way to save part of her herd and to avoid relocation. She could sign an "Accommodation Agreement" that was included as part of PL 104-301, which was sponsored by Senator John McCain of Arizona. By signing this agreement, she acknowledges the loss of her land title and agrees to live as a tenant in her own house. Under the agreement, she is not allowed to vote or to participate in the legal system except as a defendant. She and people like her must live in a system in which they are blatantly discriminated against because of their ethnic origin. Permits are required for everything ranging from possessing firewood to performing religious ceremonies. The people are not even allowed to bury their dead according to their traditional religious beliefs. Government regulations control who is allowed to live in her house and who is allowed to visit her. Permits for scarce commodities like grazing permits are allocated according to a priority list on which Dineh like Rena are placed at the bottom to insure they never receive any.

In an effort to obtain signatures on these leases and thereby make it appear that a fair solution had been reached, McCain and his followers in Congress attached a provision to the law that grants the Hopi government $25 million if it can obtain signatures from 95 families on these leases-over $260,000 per signature. The federal government then supported a campaign of fraud and coercion to obtain signatures. People were told they would be thrown in jail or evicted in the middle of the night if they refused to sign when requested. Signatures were forged. Semiofficial thugs empowered by the US government even threatened to kill some of the elderly people if they refused to sign. Despite this campaign, Rena and many of the families still refused to sign, so the BIA has launched a final wave of attacks to exterminate the resisters.

How It All Began

Senator McCain's law was intended to be the final solution to a problem that began in 1882 when the U.S. Government created a reservation centered on the Hopi villages at the southern tip of Black Mesa. The land surrounding the Hopi, making up over 85% of the reservation, was inhabited by Dineh. In the 1930s, the U.S. Government proposed giving control over the reservation to a government consisting exclusively of Hopi. Recognizing the problem that this presented to the Dineh living on the reservation, the BIA proposed in 1943 to partition the reservation so as to give the Hopi government control over a small area in the middle and to give the Navajo government control over the rest.

These plans were derailed when the nation's largest deposits of low-sulfur coal were discovered on the land where the Dineh lived. An attorney named John Boyden, who was simultaneously working for the Peabody Coal Company, formed a Hopi government under his control in 1953 and won a settlement in 1963 giving him a 50% interest in the Dineh land. In 1974 with the strong support of a consortium of energy companies, Boyden persuaded Congress to pass PL 93-531 which divided the Dineh land into separate Hopi/Navajo regions and ordered the relocation of all Dineh living on the Hopi Partitioned Lands.

"We want everyone to know that the Navajos are not the ones taking our land, but the United States. The Hopi and the Navajo made peace long ago, and sealed their agreement spiritually with a medicine bundle. It is through the puppet governments, the 'Tribal Councils' forced upon both nations by the United States, that the illusion of a conflict has been created on the basis of the false modern concept of land title." [Martin Gashweseoma, Keeper of the Hopi Fire Clan Tablets]

Over the next 25 years, more than 12,000 Dineh were forcibly relocated in a program described by its former director Leon Berger as "a tragedy of genocide and injustice that will be a blot on the conscience of this country for many generations." Many were moved to the "New Lands," an area near Chambers, AZ, too arid to support their livestock and contaminated by the largest spill of radioactive waste in US history, which occurred when a containment dam at a uranium mine burst upstream on the Rio Puerco, which runs through the land. Others were moved into cities for which they lacked survival skills, and where they became caught in a circle of homelessness, alcoholism, and suicide.

While the 1974 law mandated relocation, it did not authorize the use of force to remove those who refused to leave, and approximately 3,000 Dineh still remain on their land despite all the efforts to evict them. In 1996, McCain sponsored a bill which attempted to resolve the situation by offering some of the families leases that would allow them to remain as tenants on their land without civil rights. The bill authorized the forcible relocation after February 1, 2000, of those who were ineligible to sign or who refused to sign the leases.

What You Can Do To Help

We urge all Americans to call upon Congress to repeal legislation that legalizes ethnic cleansing, that arbitrarily confiscates the homes and property of the poorest people in the country, and that strips people of their civil rights solely because of their ethnic origin. Please contact your representatives and remind them that the foundation of all policy toward America's native peoples should be respect for their right to remain on their ancestral land, to practice their traditional religion, and to enjoy the same protections and civil rights offered to all other citizens.

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Further information on the issue can be obtained from: the Sovereign Dineh Nation P.O. Box 1968 Kaibeto, AZ 86053 E-mail: DINETAH29@aol.com E-mail: Verna Clinton E-mail: Helena W. Begay Related paths: URL: Solsite Indigenous Support Website sponsored by Mauro Oliveira, Sol Communications View Sol Communications RealPlayer video. URL: Vanishing Prayer: Genocide of the Dineh "A 16 minute mini-documentary summarizing the political history of the Dineh and their current crisis of relocation." URL: Big Mountain Dineh Relocation Resistance Site sponsored by Robert Dorman

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What you can do:

Write letters to Senator McCain and his campaign headquarters. Let McCain know that like the 1970s, students and people from all walks of life are involved in a movement that will not stop, following him during his presidential campaign, until he gives justice to these people. Then he can become a hero. The telephone number for McCains New Hampshire headquarters is 603-626-0800.

Tell McCain that he has the power to remedy the injustices done to the Dineh and take responsibility for all that has happened. In 1996, Congress looked to him, as the senior senator from the home state of Arizona, for guidance on this issue. He had the choice then of whether to continue the programs of the past or to develop legislation that revoked the policies of ethnocide and destruction, and provided humane solutions. By choosing to embrace the policies of the past, he inherited responsibility for their impact during the last 25 years, endorsing a war of attrition against the Dineh (the slow beating down of a people). Now he has the choice and the responsibility to undo these tragic laws.

McCain was the sponsor of Senate Bill 1973: Navajo-Hopi Relocation Act of 1996, which ultimately became P.L. 104-301. He wrote the introduction to the bill, and it was pushed through Congress by him. The bill was disguised as a settlement that would prevent relocation, so that McCain's introduction to the bill sounds like his only interest is in preventing relocation. However, it was clear to everyone at the time that the bill would ultimately have the effect of authorizing relocation. As a consequence of this bill being passed into law, everything that the Dineh said would happen has occurred:

--the extortion of signatures

--the pending relocation

--the livestock permitting system, leaving families without protection for their herds, their sole means of survival

--ratifying a settlement agreement under which the Dineh families who signed leases are not allowed to vote or participate in the government that controls them--entitled to no civil rights.

We urge people to contact McCain's campaign as concerned citizens and ask the following questions:

--Do you believe it is appropriate for Congress to continue policies that are based on land title established by a coal company?

--Are you willing to consider legislation that revises the land title to reflect the traditional occupancy and use?

--Most other nations now recognize the rights of indigenous people to remain on their traditional land. S 1973, which you sponsored, requires the relocation next year of people whose families have occupied this land for hundreds of years. Why do you believe that the U.S. should not recognize their right to remain on their land?

--Do you believe that the confiscation of their livestock, the sole means of survival of elderly people,benefits the U.S. government?

--Would you call for a moratorium on the livestock confiscations?

--Why do you feel that Native Americans are not entitled to civil rights?

--Would you meet with the Dineh grandmothers and let their voice be heard for the first time?

--You have the choice now to become a hero in creating a just solution or of repeating the continuing pattern of abuse of indigenous people into the new millennium. What is your choice?

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