And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Subject: Elderly Navajo Indians Threatened With Starvation...
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 18:25:22 EST
Elderly Navajo Indians Threatened With Starvation Sovereign Dineh Nation Faces
Livestock Impoundments On Black Mesa
BIG MOUNTAIN, Az., Feb. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Bureau of Indian affairs
(BIA) has launched a massive campaign of livestock confiscation targeting the
elderly Dineh (Navajo) families who reside on the Hopi Partitioned Lands
created by the 1974 Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act. This area, larger than the
state of Rhode Island, is the poorest region of the U.S., with an annual per
capita income lower than in many Third World countries. The elderly people
rely upon their livestock for survival, living a traditional subsistence
lifestyle on land their families have inhabited for hundreds of years.
The BIA ended a self-imposed two-year moratorium on livestock confiscation in
January by mailing notices to all owners of livestock without valid permits,
with impoundments scheduled to begin on Feb. 15, 1999. People who have not
signed leases with the Hopi Tribe are not eligible for permits. Many who have
signed leases received allocations far below the number needed for survival.
The BIA claims their sole purpose is to protect deteriorating range
conditions. The people claim that the problem is BIA range management
policies outlawing their traditional use of separate summer/winter camps,
which sustained herds 4-10 times larger prior to BIA intervention. This
current BIA livestock impoundment continues 25 years of abuse and harassment
aimed at expelling the people of Black Mesa from their homeland.
While the BIA claims that range management is an independent issue, the
targets of the impoundment campaign are the same people threatened by other
policies resulting from the 1974 Relocation Act. Over 12,000 people have
already been forcibly expelled from their homes, and many government policies
have been designed to drive out those remaining on their land. For 30 years,
the people have been subject to a freeze on housing improvements that has made
it illegal even to fix a broken window. The government routinely confiscates
their firewood in winter, and the people have been stripped of their civil
rights.
It is imperative that these people be protected by the same rights afforded to
all Americans and that the world know what is happening here. The people
threatened by the planned BIA livestock confiscation are all elderly people
who have no means of survival other than their traditional herding. Zonnie
Whitehair, the owner of the largest herd in the area, is faced with the
confiscation of her entire flock of 200 sheep. Her husband, Oscar, died in
December, and if her sheep are taken, she has said that she will soon follow.
Roberta Blackgoat, like many other grandmothers, faces the possible
confiscation of her entire herd. In addition to losing their primary food
source, the grandmothers would lose their source of wool to weave rugs that
provide their only funds for survival. As she has stated in reference to the
BIA policy, "This is not range management--it is murder."
SOURCE Sovereign Dineh Nation
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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