Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Traditional Dine'h (Navajo) remaining on the HPL in Arizona are enduring increased harassment and hardship as their livestock are impounded, their housing repairs are cited, and other measures are taken against them to force them to move. They need helpers, living supplies and legal funds.

Dine'h "non-signers" have recently gotten notices that their housing repairs are illegal, with orders to dismantle or risk demolition. Any construction or repairs on the HPL has been forbidden since 1966.

Those Dine'h who refuse to sign "AA" leases or to relocate are being targeted for forced eviction by the United States government. As tenants on the HPL they would give up many of their rights to due process and to lands their ancestors have lived on for many centuries. By US law their only option is to move to "New Lands" polluted by a uranium tailing spill.

Eviction hearings will start in Phoenix sometime after February 1, 2000, but in the meantime harsh living conditions make staying on the "HPL" (lands designated for Hopi by Congress in 1974) difficult to continue.

Despite a return of rain this summer, Bureau of Indian Affairs "Rangers" continue to forcibly impound their subsistence herds of sheep and cattle, with the stated reason being to stop overgrazing of the grassy steppes.

Wood and wood cutting tools are confiscated on sight, and harvesting is restricted by permits that are rarely granted, even for ceremonial use. Wood is necessary for traditional Dine'h who cook and heat their modest hogans using wood stoves. They also need wood for the sweat lodge and other ceremonies, which Dine'h are conducting more often as their next "deadline" approaches. Permits are required even to gather to pray.

The United States Office of Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation maintain the reason for forced relocation is that the two tribes are in a dispute over the land, which traditionals from both tribes deny, saying Dine'h removal is to clear the land for expanded strip mining by Peabody Coal Company.

The Bennett Freeze on construction and repairs went into effect the day after the coal mine leases were approved by the Department of Interior in 1966. The Black Mesa and Kayenta coal mines have been in operation since.

The "New Lands" were appropriated for relocation by Congress in 1980. The previous year, a uranium mill dam broke and United Nuclear Corporation released 1,100 tons of sludge and 94 million gallons of mining effluent into the Rio Puerco, which travelled downstream from New Mexico into Arizona, past the relocation sites and into the Little Colorado River.

ONHIR is building relocation housing on the "New Lands" for the Dine'h, which must be completed and approved by the Department of Interior before evictions can be enforced. People all over the world are holding protests, fund raisers, prayer vigils and writing letters to government officials to stop forced evictions and uphold Dine'h human rights.

A caravan of workers are bringing and distributing food staples, wood and supplies for Thanksgiving. Workers are needed to stay at Dine'h home sites to help with chores and serve as witnesses this fall and snowy winter.

After February 1st, the Department of Justice will seek court orders to evict Dine'h non-signers, to be enforced by a multi-jurisdictional police task force. Dine'h non-signers and their extended families challenging evictions in the United States District Court in Phoenix will need travel, room and board resources and arrangements, and legal funds for hearings.

Other legal efforts to stop forced relocation include a religious freedom class-action lawsuit "Manybeads VS United States et all" which should return to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco this fall.

Hearings in 1998 were held at Black Mesa, Arizona in an investigation of United States religious intolerance by a Special Rapporteur for the United Nations, with ongoing efforts in the Human Rights Commission for the Prevention of Discrimination Against Minorities, by the Working Group for Indigenous Populations. "Manybeads" and UN actions could take years.

To help with funds and logistics for eviction hearings in Phoenix, to help with chores, wood or food, to write letters and protest, or for more information contact Indigenous Support Coalition of Oregon (ISCO).