Copyright © 1996 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

On October 11th, 1996, President Clinton signed the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act of 1996, which then became Public Law 104-310, authorizing the prompt eviction of traditional Navajo families from the Partitioned Lands, beginning on January 1st, 1997. According to Senator John McCain from Arizona, one of the sponsors of this Act, this could mean as many as 640 Navajo families, thousands of Navajo people. Throughout Clinton's first term as President, he has always supported the relocation of the Navajos from their ancestral lands on Black Mesa and the desecration of their sacred sites at Star Mountain, Big Mountain and elsewhere. And Clinton made sure that his policies were carried out by the officials at the Dept. Of Justice and the Dept. of the Interior.

Now, even though millions of people in the U.S. and around the world have criticized the U.S. Government for its cruel and inhumane program of forced removal, which has already produced over 7,000 Navajo refugees, Clinton has found a "quick and dirty" solution to this lingering problem. All he had to do was trample on the Navajos' First Amendment rights to Religious Freedom and Fifth Amendment rights to Due Process, to violate the Winters' Doctrine on Indian Water Rights, to invite the U.S. Marshals and the Multi- jurisdictional Task Force to implement the evictions even though no housing will be available for these Navajo evictees to move into, and to bribe the Navajo Tribe, the Hopi Tribe and the State of Arizona with millions of dollars of hush money and other valuable considerations. However, the only real beneficiary of this law will be the U.S. Government itself which will avoid $100's of millions of dollars of legal liabilities while retaining invaluable water rights in this arid region.

The nine basic provisions of P.L. 104-310, as amended,
which are extremely generous to the Hopi Tribe, authorized:

1. The Land Dispute Settlement was written as an agreement solely between the U.S. and the Hopi Tribe. Neither the Navajo Nation nor the Navajo families residing on Partitioned Lands are not considered as parties to nor equal partners in this Settlement, even though the total number of Navajos affected by the Relocation Program over the past two decades far exceeds the total number of Hopi people living on their reservation.
   
   
2. The new law ratifies the Hopi Accommodation Agreement of 1994 and the Hopi Residential Homesite Lease, even though it violates the Unitary Clause of the Agreement by implementing terms, conditions and changes which were never discussed nor approved. P.L. 104-310 ratifies the provisions for evictions commencing New Years' Day, the continued violation of Navajo religious freedoms for those families who submit and stay, the violation of the Navajo families 5th Amendment rights to "Due Process by requiring the forfeiture of all civil and sovereign rights by the new Navajo tenants, the strict limitations on the size of the Navajo families and the size of their herds, and many other cruel conditions.
   
   
3. The Public Law provides for the acquisition of new Trust Lands by the Hopi, outside of the Reservation and the Partitioned Lands, through the outright purchase of additional private and public lands. The Hopi Tribe will be given $50.2 million for this taking, but the Act stipulates that the New Lands are only to be used for ranching, farming and other commercial enterprises, and not for residential settlement. These are activities that only about 10 families are prepared to accomplish; the vast majority of the Hopi Indians will not benefit from this in any way. However, this receipt of monies and acquisition of lands is contingent upon having 85% of the Navajo heads of households sign up in favor of the Accommodation Agreement or filing for Relocation Assistance off the reservation somewhere. This is a different percentage than that designated in the Accommodation Agreement itself, and would violate its Unitary Clause thus terminating the Agreement. But the large sums of money and acreages of lands may help the Hopi overlook this point, and other similar discrepancies.
   
   
4. The Hopi Tribal Council may choose to acquire other lands without paying for them, by having the Secretary of the Interior condemn these lands, regardless of circumstance or condition, and then the Federal Government will pay the State of Arizona the adjusted market value of these lands.
   
   
5. The first payment to the State of Arizona is already being arranged. The sum of $250,000 will be appropriated from the Dept. of the Interior budget of Fiscal Year 1998.
   
   
6. P.L. 104-310 includes an Action to Quiet Possession of the Partitioned Lands by the Hopi so that the Hopi will have unrestricted title to the millions of acres of HPL by February 1, 2000. This give the U.S. government 3 years and 1 month to complete the removal of all eligible Navajo families who refuse to sign the Accommodation Agreement and choose Relocation instead.
   
   
7. The Act extends the Leasing Authority of the Hopi Tribe to 75 years, the length of the Hopi Residential Homesite Lease, which is 3 times longer than the previous term of 25 years established for all Indian tribes by the BIA in 1955. And, of course, the First Amendment says nothing about Religious Freedom having a term of only 75 years.
   
   
8. Clinton's Act reauthorizes the existence of the Navajo-Hopi Relocation Housing Program for an additional 3 years, until the year 2000. This has already become the largest, most costly, and most scandalous Federal Housing Program in the history of the U.S. They've already spent over $400 million to provide 1,200 Navajo with houses that have no running water, no electricity, no driveways or paved roads, doors that won't fit the door jams, on land that won't support any herds of sheep or other livestock, and some which are adjacent to the Rio Puerco where the U.S. had the largest uranium tailings spill in its history, the Churchrock Spill. And worse, more than 7,000 Navajo were forced off the mesa without receiving any Relocation Assistance money or housing, let alone counseling and job placement as was promised in the original bill, P.L. 93-531.
   
   
9. Just before the vote in the Senate, on September 26th, Senator Trent Lott introduced an amendment to the proposed Act, which was agreed to without objection by all the Senators present. This amendment became Section 12 of the Act and provided that the Hopi Tribe would only have immediate use of the groundwater and well water on any of the New Lands. The federal government would retain the rights to subsurface sources and surface resources. The Hopi Tribe could not sell, lease, redistribute use or transport the water in any way and could only redirect it to areas within the same river basin tributary to the main stream of the Colorado River. This would include snow melt and storm runoff. The Hopi Tribal Council selfishly agreed to this without thinking about the impact this could have for other tribes who are increasing their Trust Lands. This creates a terrible, an probably unlawful, precedent where the U.S. government misuses their plenary power to further deprive the tribes of what is legitimately theirs as sovereign nations. The Winters Doctrine of Indian Water Rights, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court for over 100 years, has now been deeply violated by President Clinton's signature on P.L. 104-310.

In spite of the fact that Clinton recently signed an Executive Order to Protect American Indian Sacred Sites, that he signed Amendments strengthening the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1994, and that he signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, Clinton did not hesitate to sign P.L. 104-310 which violates all of these earlier statutes by fencing and developing commercial enterprises on acknowledged Navajo Sacred Sites, disrupting traditional burial grounds and refusing to allow Navajo burial ceremonies or actual burials on the mesa, destroying ceremonial and herb gathering sites, and abandoning the Federal Trust Responsibility to protect the Navajo elders and their families and to guarantee the free exercise of their religious rights. A new era of hardship for the Navajos is about to unfold....

After 2 decades of perpetual hardship, the heroism, courage and exceptional tenacity of the Navajo elders and their 640 families still remaining on their ancestral lands deserves to be commended and rewarded. Since there is no more Compelling Interest in the Manybeads Case than the Federal Trust Responsibility and its guarantee of unabridged Religious Freedom. These Navajo elders deserve to immediately receive adequate housing and building materials, well drilling equipment to deepen the wells into the N-Aquifer which has fallen dramatically due to Peabody's mining operations and coal slurry, a medical clinic, an end to the constant confiscation of herds and livestock, and an end to the punishing harassment by government officials. This would not require any additional federal money , since millions of dollars of annual budget allotments have been held in escrow by the tribe and the BIA until the legal dispute is resolved. Since 1974, the Navajo Tribe has withheld financial aid and essential services which all of their other Chapters receive regularly, pending the outcome of the resistance struggle.

But we cannot wait for the federal government to do what is right. We must increase our material aid caravans, our educational efforts in our communities, the media coverage by local and national press, and our lobbying efforts in Congress and with the White House. As for witnesses on the land for the eviction deadline, the elders request that this be by invitation only. Any popular mobilizations must extend their efforts in their regions and not send people out onto the land during this harsh Winter.

As for P.L. 104-310, to paraphrase Andrew Jackson, "President Clinton has rendered his decision, now let him enforce it", as the whole world watches.