Action Alert, Mining the Navajo to Extinction
Based on an article in "Country Red Road Chronicles," February, 2000
By the end of February, the United States government will have completed the relocation of the Navajo (Dineh, in their native tongue), who remain at a site in Arizona which they have inhabited since the U.S. Army tried to wipe them all out in 1863. The relocation site is a desolate piece of land downstream from the location of the nation’s worst nuclear disaster, which occurred in 1979, and is unfit for humans or animals. This relocation began by order of President Gerald Ford in 1974, when he signed Public Law 93-531. Nearly 12,000 Dineh have been forcibly moved from their tribal land since then and the impact has been catastrophic.
Twenty-five percent of the first group who were moved in 1980 died within six years of their arrival on the new site. Since then, the remaining population has been ravaged by birth defects from the uranium mine waste spill in 1979 and by deep cultural wounds. The native plants vital to the religious ceremonies of the Dineh do not grow at the relocation site. Their animals die from radiation poisoning. They believe that their bond with Mother Earth has been broken. To the Dineh, to relocate from the land of their birth is to disappear.
Those refusing relocation are now mostly elders. The U.S. government is now taking extreme measures to force them from their homes. The United States wants the Dineh out of the Big Mountain area in Arizona, because it is the site of a massive coal strip mine operated by the Peabody Western Coal Company. In the 1940s and 1950s, it was discovered that massive deposits of coal and uranium (necessary for the production of nuclear weapons) lay beneath the lands that the Dineh and the Hopi had settled into after the U.S. Army began its efforts to exterminate them in 1863. Thousands of Dineh were killed during that assault, and thousands more were forced to march 400 miles in the infamous winter "Long Walk." Some escaped and took refuge in the Big Mountain region, where those who survived the five years of imprisonment rejoined them.
U.S. hunger for the resources on the Dineh and Hopi lands has been insatiable. Mineral companies sought agreements with the Tribal Councils set up by the U.S. government to expedite the awarding of mineral rights to companies. Most Dineh and Hopi still do not know how to read and write English, and few have any connections with these Tribal Councils. The result has been that one-third of all uranium mined in the United States has come from Dineh land, and the world’s largest strip mine was established in the 1960s to mine coal. The nation’s largest power plant was built adjacent to the site, generating so much pollution from the burning of coal that Apollo astronauts saw the toxic clouds emanating from it when they were on the Moon. It is the largest single source of greenhouse gases in North America.
Many Native Americans who worked in the uranium mines have suffered from radiation sickness and many children suffer from birth defects.
The traditional Hopi tribal elders, Thomas Banyacya and David Monongye were horrified to realize that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained uranium mined on Hopi land. They spoke out against the nuclear arms race in the late 1940s and early 1950s and repeatedly appeared at the United Nations until their deaths in the 1990s, warning the world about the dangers of nuclear weapons.
About 3000 Dineh have resisted eviction from the area for the last 25 years. In 1996, President Clinton signed Public Law 104-301, sanctioning the forced evictions of the remaining Dineh by February 2000. In an effort to force out those who remain on the land, a U.S. court ordered that the Dineh cannot repair their homes or build new ones; denied them access to fresh water; and confiscated their livestock, upon which they depend. Firewood is confiscated in winter and law enforcement officials harass and threaten them with eviction and jail sentences. This level of harassment and violation of basic human rights would never be tolerated in any U.S. city.
The Peabody Western Coal Company is owned by Hanson Holding Company of London, England. They have paid the Navajo and Hopi Tribal Councils 12 cents per ton of coal, which they sell for $22 per ton in the marketplace. They mine 12 millions tons of coal per year.
The Dineh resistance effort needs money. Tax deductible donations can be sent to their authorized agent: Steve Sugarman, Executive Director, Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs 20110 Rockport Way Malibu, California 90265-5340 phone: (310) 456-3534 e-mail: SEE8541@aol.com. Make check payable to: Sovereign Dineh Nation. To contact the elders at Black Mesa, write to Indigenous Support, P.O. Box 23501, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002 phone: (520) 773-8086 e-mail: fbmsn@hotmail.com or granmonta@hotmail.com. Write to Bureau of Indian Affairs, nedradarling@ios.doi.gov; Bruce Babbitt, Department of the Interior, brucebabbit@ios.doi.gov; Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary , Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Affairs; kevin-gover@ios.doi.gov phone (202) 208-3711 or fax (202) 501-1516; Fred Chavez, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Hopi Agency, P.O. Box 158, Keams Canyon, Arizona 86034; President Clinton: president@white-house.gov
from Peace Talk, March 2000Back to Peace Talk Index, March 2000