In 1974 the U.S. Government legally endorsed genocide when Congress passed Public Law 93-531, which enabled Peabody Coal Company to strip mine Black Mesa by ripping the traditional Navajo and Hopi peoples from the land.
Crossposted at Native American Netroots
Update (finally found this video again):
John McCain introduced legislation (S1973-1 and S.1003), and then claimed that legislation was justified by a non-existent range war between the Dineh and the Hopi. Consequently, that lie was used to justify the Bennet Freeze.
APARTHEID IN ARIZONA
...Jets fly low over the area on an almost daily basis, livestock is impounded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the pretense that resisters are "overgrazing" the land, and, due to the special Bennet Freeze clause of P.L.93-531 (which foresaw the possibility of a resistance) Dine people living on what is now Hopi Partitioned Land cannot legally upgrade their housing (i.e. repair a hole in their roof during the winter) without facing the threat of arrest because they no longer legally own the property their families have lived on for centuries. This type of regular harassment has been described as "low intensity psychological warfare" and it has become commonplace against families resisting relocation at Big Mountain.
These families continue to hope that public outcry will become so loud that Congress will no longer be able to ignore the damage which is done every day to people affected by relocation policies. In order to truly respect Native American self-determination, Congress must submit a full repeal of P.L.93-531 and use the money allocated for "relocation benefits" to repair the damage done to those people who have already been relocated (many of whom have yet to receive alternative housing). And while Congress remains reluctant to repeal...
So, McCain made it illegal for the Navajo to repair their housing, even in dire circumstances, in order to steal their land.
Wager called it, “the largest forced relocation of U.S. citizens since the relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II.” So here’s some sound bites “main” media.
McCain lied about the range war between the Navajo and the Hopi.
Source
The justification for Public Law 93-531 passed by Congress in 1974 was that the Navajo-Hopi land dispute is so serious that 10,000 Navajos near Big Mountain, Arizona, must be relocated, forcibly if necessary. It would be the largest forced relocation of U.S. citizens since the relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
But tradition-minded Navajo and Hopi claim there never was a land dispute. They say the dispute was invented to get the Navajos and their livestock off mineral-rich land in the Hopi reservation so it could be developed by mining companies such as Peabody Coal and Kerr-McGee.
McCain was not honorable in introducing legislation that led to the forced removal of the Navajo.
Source
The Dineh (otherwise known as Navajo) were stripped of all land title and forced to relocate. Their land was turned over to the coal companies without making any provisions to protect the burial or sacred sites that would be destroyed by the mines. People whose lives were based in their deep spiritual and life-giving relationship with the land were relocated into cities, often without compensation, forbidden to return to the land that their families had occupied for generations. People became homeless with significant increases in alcoholism, suicide, family break up, emotional abuse and death.
McCain introduced legislation that resulted in "the largest forced relocation of U.S. citizens since the relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II."
"I feel that in relocating these elderly people, we are as bad as the Nazis that ran the concentration camps in World War II."
Roger Lewis, federally appointed Relocation Commissioner upon resignation
"I believe that the forced relocation of Navajo and Hopi people that followed from the passage in 1974 of Public Law 93-531 is a major violation of these people's human rights. Indeed this forced relocation of over 12,000 Native Americans is one of the worst cases of involuntary community resettlement that I have studied throughout the world over the past 40 years." -- Thayer Scudder, Professor of Anthropology, California Institute of Technology in a letter to Mr. Abdelfattah Amor, UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance
Source
John McCain's political history is loaded with abuse of his position concerning lobbyists. Since posting actual links is against HuffPo policy, do the simple research yourself.
Look into the forcible removal of the Dineh tribes, known as the Navajo, in Arizona. Follow his ties to Atty John Boyden and the Peabody Western Group (nka Peabody Energy) and their advantages gained from McCain's legislation S1973-1 and S1003. He pushed Atty Gen Reno in forcing them off their treaty lands and onto
a nuclear waste site (Church Hill, Nevada) through the "Relocation Commission" Look up PL 93-531. Genocide for the expansion of mining rights. Follow the money that supported his political career from the energy elites that own the Mohave Generating Station in Nevada. John McCain is a corrupt politician and the evidence is there to prove it. posted 02/21/2008 at 11:28:47
John McCain "knows what's best for America", and that's Straight Talk, my friends....unless of course you're a Native American.
So “main” media, do the people have a right to know, or is this how it is?
Source
His critique of the prominent research universities, along with the media, was no less withering. These institutions, self-absorbed, compromised by their close relationship with government and corporations, given enough of the pie to be complacent, were unwilling to deal with the fundamental moral questions and inequities of the age. They had no stomach for a battle that might cost them their prestige and comfort.
So far, it has been.
Labels: winter rabbit
Winter Rabbit on 9/28/2008 4:51 PM:
Great question Jeremy, I’ll do my best to answer it.
Well, here’s what the main link says, which correlates with the video I added,
Advances Magazine - February 5, 2008
For an example of testimony by the fake Hopi tribal counsel: leader Wayne Taylor, at Senate Hearings on the forcible resettlement of the Dineh Navajo, tried to claim encroachment of lands he claimed "were occupied by our people for 1000 years", falsely alleging that the Navajo were relative newcomers. The claims are historical falsehoods, as the Navajo and all Indian Tribes of America are sub-units of the overall Hopi, which term refers to all Indian Tribes.
The behavior by Senator John McCain in manipulating the laws and circumstances of this horrific affair is pervasively criminal, in the ACSA's opinion, and also quite worthy of the prosecution and incarceration of Senator McCain, and his associates in sponsorship of the bills, the proxy Hopi "wooden indians" bought and paid for by McCain and Peabody, and the profiteering from the coal mining of the Black Mesa, for Criminal Fraud, Conspiracy and Misconduct of Office. ACSA would further not be in a position to hand McCain any endorsement in his Presidential run, we opine and consider his election, the election of a known criminal, would ultimately damage the United States in ways as of yet not conceived.
Here’s the link to Wayne Taylor’s testimony.
WAYNE TAYLOR, JR., CHAIRMAN, THE HOPI TRIBE
The following statement is startling: It will take the Hopi people 123 years to meet the
current demands for housing that is a result of overcrowded conditions. This is not a
worst-case scenario; this is the current trend. It was included by the HTHA in their 2004
IHP report.
What is the Hopi tribal government doing about these housing concerns? A number of
years ago, the Hopi Tribal Council approved a Comprehensive Land Use Plan and within
this plan designated five (5) new community sites to be located on the Hopi Partitioned
Lands. One such site is the Tawaovi Community. The new community of Tawaovi is
located 15 miles north of Second Mesa along BIA route 4, also known as the Turquoise
Trail. The Tawaovi Community provides for mixed used housing, commercial and
industrial development, ranching and farming, and other government facilities. We are
working with the local Housing Authority to plan new housing for these communities.
We need congressional support to make the plans a reality.
And from the first link, this has a lot of credibility to me.
“The ACSA is the world's largest computer science foundation with some 9.5 million registered members, and 15,000 sponsoring companies. Its primary charter is one of Public Advocacy and its website is found at http://acsa.net .”
Taper off with this from ccamp
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/24/162622/271/388/574219
“It's so damn complicated and it took a couple of decades for it all to happen that it's hard to boil down into a sound bite. McCain chaired the Senate Indian Affairs committee and as such was involved in all the main decisions in Indian Country. He has made it his mission to oppose almost every reform needed in the BIA and the OTR so they go on cheating and mismanaging our affairs. This benefits the giant lobbying industry that has grown up around our issues especially since billions of dollars of gambling money is now involved. McCain is owned by those lobbying forces that use our needs as their private piggy bank.
________________________________
One thing observed from Wounded Knee II is that a tribal member in a place of power can behave as Dick Wilson did in modern times, and in this case, there are similarities.
o http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/24/162622/271/388/574219
o
o
o he has some Indians on his payroll also some Hopi officials supported the removal because of the money they were offered but the grassroots Hopi and their traditional Elders opposed the whole damn thing and came together with the Navajo to stop it.
by cacamp on Sun Aug 24, 2008 at 08:13:32 PM PDT
_______________________________
So your question, “but if the Hopi objected to having 12,000 Navajo on their ancestral land, shouldn't they get some say in that?” has a complicated answer.
While the traditional elders of both tribes “opposed the whole damn thing and came together with the Navajo to stop it,” “some Hopi officials supported the removal because of the money they were offered.”
So I would say that the Hopi officials that supported it shouldn’t have any say in it, while the traditional elders should have a say in it. And what the traditional elders say, is that there was not a range war to begin with.
What is sad and true I think, is that the ones that took money still didn’t get what they did it for in the first place.
Last note on “The claims are historical falsehoods, as the Navajo and all Indian Tribes of America are sub-units of the overall Hopi, which term refers to all Indian Tribes.”
Navajo Timeline
1300
to
1500 • A second and last wave of Athabascans (or Athapaskans) left the main group from Alaska and northwest Canada and would follow an inland migration route into the southwestern part of the United States and northern Mexico. This 2nd Athabascan wave make-up the Apachean Sub-Group (Jicarilla, Mescalero, Chiricahua, Lipan, Aravaipa, Kiowa-Apache, & Navajos)
Source
The precise origin of the Hopi is unknown, although it is thought that they and other Pueblo peoples descended from the Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi), whom the Hopi call Hisatsinom, “Ancient People.”
ANASAZI * CULTURE * OF THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES (c. 700 - 1100)
• c. 1100 - - Hopis * in the American Southwest (Chaco Canyon * and Pueblo * Bonito), use coal for cooking and heating.
_________________________
Is 200 years a “relative newcomer?” In spite of that, there’s a line that once it’s crossed, that party is wrong. Easy enough answer, till self defense is brought up and what century or decade the first “wrong” was committed, just in general terms. As far as all that goes, I don’t know shit, I can say on this issue today I go with the traditional elders.
Excellent, excellent answer. Damn. It's amazing to realize that after all these years, even now, in the 2000s, we're still taking advantage of the poverty and need of the native peoples from whom we took this land.
Is there anything we can do about this, other than just talk and write and vote for Obama? It does sound like the removal is a fait accompli, and right of return might be meaningless at this point.
Winter Rabbit on 9/28/2008 8:14 PM:
There's a donation button on their site, I think it's linked to in the 1st one I gave.
We can spread this around more too,
http://www.indianz.com/News/2008/009664.asp
It doesn't mention this, but it's a great conversation breaker.
I don't know, I think it'd be good to spell out all this in steps, I've been too angry or disturbed writing about it to calmly explain how all the legislation worked.
Got into it a little here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/28/03842/6225/254/613015
It became law before McCain was in Arizona, then he used it when he was.
"(Public Law 93-531 as amended in 1996 (Partition), 1999 (Settlement), 2001 (Enforcement of Resettlement) and 2005 (Expansion of Resettlement) by bills introduced by Senator McCain - has led to the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Hon Abdeltalif Amor's condemnation of human rights violations inside the US, over the stripping of rights and forced resettlement of these gentle and deeply spiritual band of Dineh-Navajo Indians from Arizona, swept off of lands they'd owned since 1500 A.D. so that Peabody Western Coal could mine the Coal from beneath their farmlands and tap their wells to slurry pipe it to a power station in Nevada)."
http://www.google.com/base/a/3374300/D4198007485631415982
"to force them off the lands, a partition fence was used (through law enacted by McCain in a 1996 bill he brought before the Senate and House) designed to deprive them of range to herd their cattle. When the Dineh simply removed sections of the fence to range their herds, the Dineh's water wells (for cattle, but on the other side of the fences from them) were capped, their properties vandalized, their cattle seized, and ultimately false challenges to their deeds were filed by paid proxies of the Peabody Western Coal Company under the guise of a phony "Hopi" tribal counsel claiming theoretical ownership of all Indian lands nationwide."
Anyway, what would be the most useful at this point is to put on the educator's hat. All the pertinent info. is here also:
http://www.cain2008.org/
http://www.gallupindependent.com/2006/july/072606frzamnd.html
"MacDonald-LoneTree (Coalmine Canyon/Toh Nanees Dizi chapters) told IGR members that Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. and the Navajo-Hopi Land Commission have already taken a position of opposition against Sen. McCain's bill.
"That has already gone through the Senate, it has been heard before the House, and this document will be the official position of Navajo that we oppose that bill," she said.
"Sen. McCain's trying to close the office of Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation (in Flagstaff) and seize the funding that would be allowed to benefit those people who were affected by the relocation act," MacDonald-LoneTree said."
Maybe I've been too afraid to make myself write it all out like that, it feels like putting that damned Papal Bull in my own words. I was depressed for three days.
Here's the one thing I'm confused about between the story you're telling and what I learned growing up: wasn't this all done at the behest of the Hopi? I mean, how do the Hopi feel about having the Navajo on "their" land? We can bash McCain and Peabody Coal all we want, and I'm definitely on the bandwagon with that, but if the Hopi objected to having 12,000 Navajo on their ancestral land, shouldn't they get some say in that?