ENVIRONMENT: Centuries-Old Navajo and Hopi Struggle Continues

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 29 1996 (IPS) - Some 2,000 members of the Navajo nation say that the U.S. government is forcing them off lands in the deserts of northern Arizona that they have shared in peace and in war with the Hopi peoples for centuries.

The issue is complicated by the fact that there are at least five different parties that have an interest in the matter — the community facing resettlement, the U.S. government, the Hopi and Navajo tribal governments, and Peabody Western, a large British coal company — and not all of them are at the negotiating table.

Under a deal worked out between the Navajo and Hopi tribal governments, with the assistance of the federal government, a bill will be presented to the U.S. Congress next month that will give the Navajo community until the end of the year to accept the jurisdiction of the Hopi tribe, who have official title to the land under U.S. law, or be evicted.

This would not the first time that the Navajo, who call themselves the Dineh peoples, have been evicted from their homelands.

In 1864, thousands of Navajo died when U.S. government agents forced them to relocate to Fort Sumner, New Mexico so that miners could search for gold and other precious metals on their lands, in what is now known as the ‘Long March’.

The Navajo, who returned to Big Mountain four years after the ‘Long March’, were again evicted from their lands in 1974, when Peabody arrived to dig for coal. But the 250 families who currently live on Big Mountain refused to join the some 10,000 others who left their lands.

Roberta Blackgoat, the chair of the Sovereign Dineh Nation, who represents these families, says that those “who continue to resist are political and religious prisoners.”

Congress, for its part, is now very keen to settle the matter as soon as possible.

“The federal government has spent more that than 350 million dollars on this programme …over 22 years. That exceeds the original cost estimates by 900 percent. The relocation programme must come to an orderly and certain conclusion,” Senator John McCain of Arizona told Congress recently.

But the members of the community which has lived and raised sheep for centuries on Big Mountain in Four Corners — so named because it lies where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet — point out that they were not consulted about the proposed settlement, even though it affects their future.

Hopi and Navajo tribal officials counter that the settlement is the best possible deal for the Big Mountain community, whose members have denounced officials from both tribes as nothing but Peabody lackeys.

Blackgoat points out that the 1974 relocation plan was masterminded by John Boyden, a lawyer who was employed by a Salt Lake City-based company, Evans and Associates, that was contracted by both the Hopi tribe and an association of 23 energy companies that wanted to mine for coal and build power plants.

Peabody records show that the Navajo leaders who moved now receive some 27 million dollars a year in royalties from Peabody, while the Hopi tribe gets some 14 million dollars in annual payments from the operation of the company’s two mines, which produce about 1.5 million tonnes of coal annually.

Hopi and Navajo leaders deny that the problem has anything to do with the coal mining.

“The relocation of the Navajo is not because of Peabody’s mining activities but is due solely to the efforts by the Hopi government to claim Navajo homelands,” Navajo tribal president Peterson Zah wrote in a letter to the company two years ago.

Hopi chairman Ferrell Secakuku wrote a similar letter to Howard Carson, Peabody’s president, last year. “Peabody is no way acting in concert with the Hopi tribe …in the relocation effort,” he said.

Earlier this month, representatives of the Navajo and Hopi tribes came here to put the final touches on an agreement to hand the Big Mountain area over to the Hopi, with the aid of a U.S. government-appointed mediator. No Big Mountain representative was invited to the closed-door meeting, but the mediator did met with residents for an hour before the meeting began.

Hopi officials told IPS that they expect the deal to be signed soon after it is approved by Congress, which has jurisdiction over tribal lands.

“Our history tells us that we are the original peoples of the mesas and that the Navajo were raiders who arrived centuries ago to pillage our fields,” says Bill Havens, an assistant to Secakuku.

“Under this agreement, which offers a solution to the problems of the last 20 years, the Hopi will allow the Dineh to continue to live on Big Mountain for 75 years, so long as they live by Hopi law. But they won’t have to change their religion,” he added.

In addition, the proposed agreement calls for the federal government to pay the Hopi government 50.2 million dollars to settle claims over grazing rights and other matters.

Meanwhile, the Navajo community of Big Mountain says that in recent years their lives have become miserable because of harassment by Hopi police and pollution from Peabody’s coal-mining operations, which lies some 20 kilometres from their homes.

For example, in May the Hopi police prevented the Navajo from performing the spring Sun Dance on the grounds that it posed a fire hazard. The Navajo say their failure to perform the traditional rite and the destruction of ceremonial buildings by the Hopi caused this year’s drought.

Despite the drought, Peabody continues to draw down 5.4 billion litres of water every year from the only water source in the desert area for its mining operations.

Company officials deny their operations affect local residents, noting that “scientists estimate that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the water stored in the Navajo aquifer will be used, and they believe that all of the water will be replenished naturally 10 years after mining concludes.”

In March, however, the Big Mountain community won a lawsuit in which it charged that mining operations polluted the air and water, ruined the health of the local people, killed their sheep, and destroyed sacred sites. The court revoked the Peabody’s mining permit, but the company continues to operate under an interim permit as the case is appealed.