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TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS DELEGATION SPEAKS OUT AT THE LEHMAN BROTHERS SHAREHOLDERS MEETING IN NEW YORK CITY April 2001

Anonymous Hopi Traditional,
VOICES FROM OUR ANCESTORS AND OUR GREAT CREATOR

I am from Hopi Nation. We have come here to talk to Peabody Mining Company
about coal and water. Traditional and priesthood people don’t want this
mining. The Hopi prophecies say that we have to protect land and life. If we
don’t protect our beautiful Earth- our Heaven, our Mother, We will suffer
with her. All over the country water will be contaminated and the air will
be polluted. Living creatures will die from poisons left by industry.
Peabody is also depleting our precious water resources. This is what Peabody
is doing to the land in Arizona.
We Hopi are a Sovereign Nation. We have never signed any treaty with the US
government, or with ANY government. Yet, the United States government did
not see this and created the so-called Hopi Tribal Council. The United
States government said that if 30 percent of the Hopi people vote to elect
the Tribal Council this will be a legitimate council. But this did not
happen. Less than 30 percent of the Hopi people voted, and some of the
voters were not even Hopi.
Furthermore, John Boyden was a lawyer who worked for Peabody Coal. He was
instrumental to the creation of the Hopi Tribal Council. He was biased, and
not an impartial advocate for the Hopi people. Our ancestors fought against
the creation of a Hopi Tribal Council which was not representative of the
Hopi people, but the US government did not listen. Our ancestors warned that
someday this would happen. White men will say that it is our own people that
sold this land. I will not accept this.
Because the Hopi Tribal Council was created by the US government, they
follow the white man’s constitution and by-laws instead of the Hopi Laws and
Constitution. I am glad that our ancestors never signed any treaties with
any Government. Maybe someday someone will help the Hopi by investigating
the Hopi Tribal Council, and revealing the injustice.
I cannot understand the Hopi Tribal Council. They claim that they helped
stop the Balcan Mine in the San Francisco Peaks at Flagstaff, Arizona. But
it wasn’t the Hopi Tribal Council that stopped the Balcan Mine. It was their
boss, Bruce Babbit. Babbit, as secretary of Interior paid one million
dollars to close the mine. Maybe this can happen at Peabody Coal too. But I
doubt it. Bahana, or white men, have obligated themselves to man made laws,
instead of Creators Laws. By this he has neglected his original vow. This
means not only his downfall but damage to the Earth as well. Today the
rights of Native peoples are being violated all over this country. All
Native peoples defend land and life as we do, in order to live. Our roots
are rooted in our Villages and it goes up to the whole Universe. If we bread
these roots, the world will get out of balance. Leading us to great
destruction and judgment. The path of the Great Spirit has become difficult
to see by almost all men. Even by many Natives, who have chosen instead to
follow the path of white men, for material wealth. Many people no longer
recognize the true path of the Great Spirit. They have in fact no respect
for the Great Spirit or for our precious Mother Earth, who gives us all
Life. Now our Brothers and Sisters become well educated in the ways of the
Bahanas. They turn against their own leaders. They say they are going
forward, not backward. They say the leaders never do anything good for them
in material ways. Now they are disregarding the Great Laws. They ignore the
advice of the traditional leaders.
We know from the previous worlds; there are warnings that people go out of
balance. They no longer listened to their leaders and priests who warned
them of danger and many times tried to guide them on the right path and
repent. Instead they were laughed at and made fun of. One day the great
destruction began to. People panicked. Some ran back to the Priests begging,
“Oh, Great Ones, please help save us, we will reform.” “We have warned you
many times,” the priests replied loudly. “Nothing can be done now. The time
has come for you to depart, but you all deserve on least thing. Take your
riches and your wealth and go down.”

THIS is a small part of our history. I don’t want this darkness to fall upon
us again. The signs are here.
We Hopi don’t believe in Voting. If you speak for the Creator you are a
majority because the Great Spirit is the Majority. We don’t believe in
voting because if the few believe in Creator, then they become the Majority.
The Hopi believe that it will come to that. Maybe one or a few people will
left and if they believe in the creator than they will be in the majority.
So it is today, when we speak to you, Lehman Brothers. Even though we are
just a few here, we speak for the Creator, who is the majority. Therefore we
demand you to stop the Peabody Coal Mining and the slurry. We demand again.
Stop the coal mining and the coal slurry. I pray for you and hope that we
open your eyes and you find the majority in your heart.
These are the voices from our ancestors. Our ancestors prophesized that this
would happen. Now, we are repeating this prophecy from beginning to end.

Thank You
Traditional from Hopi Nation

Big Mountain Resistor, Shawn Benally, 21 yrs old, from the Southeast
Foothills of Big Mountain

Greetings to the people of all nations around the world, hear this that the
Indigenous people of the southwestern states are struggling an Indigenous
Struggle. Our voice should be heard as people of this society, as Human
Beings. We should be free and live in freedom as Liberty says. Real Justice
shall be revealed for the people that are struggling to this day and as days
go on. To the press, let this struggle be known to exist, that is happening
right now, right here in the continental U.S. My people are here as proof
that this message is.

Mae Shay, Big Mountain Elder, Resistor
We traveled 3000 miles to be out here to face Lehman Brothers. We are going
to tell them that they are destroying our Environment and poisoning our air,
especially Peabody Coal. Ever since they started mining, they have been
polluting the air. Many of us, including myself, are suffering from
respiratory problems. There is a lot of hardship and suffering from the
mining. Not only the people are having problems, but our animals and
vegetation are suffering as well. A lot of disease brought to us by Peabody
Coal. Even our animals are suffering.

Sometimes I don’t sleep at night, worrying about the people on Black Mesa. I
have very deep concerns. That is why I have traveled here.

Glenna Begay, Black Mesa Elder, Resistor
I have traveled over thousands of miles to be here. I have very big concerns
about the mining. They are digging half a mile from my house. They are
clearing the land for digging coal. They blast the mines, which release many
toxins into the air.
I live right in the mining boundary area. The huge draglines come to dig up
the vegetation. It creates a lot of dust that comes to my house and the
whole area. It is creating a lot of respiratory problems for our animals and
ourselves. We are all suffering form poor health.
Ever since the mining started on our area, a lot of my relatives have died
off; even miners themselves have been dying of Black Lung and other
respiratory problems. It is the mining by Peabody that is killing everything
around us. We want to live and we want the mining to stop.
We are suffering and having hardship. Everything was good before the mining
started. Now the nines are just killing us off. Even our water, our precious
water, is going somewhere else, somewhere we don’t even know. We are
watching ecological devastation out on our land. Black Mesa. These mines are
destroying our land. They tell us that the land is not ours, and even they
they are relocating us. They are the death of our problems. WE ARE HERE TO
PUT A STOP TO THE MINING PRACTICES!

Roberta Blackgoat, Big Mountain Resistor, Elder

We can not go away to other places, places where we don’t know how to make
offerings. I am here to tell of what Peabody has been doing to our Navajo
County. The place from where we are is by the San Francisco Peaks to the
East. It is an Altar. On this Altar there is a lot of mining, on our church.
If we motion together that they are mining a hole in our Altar. I wonder if
they would let us make one on theirs. I want to tell people how Indian
people protect Mother Earth, our Indian Country. She’s feeding us, a lot of
things are coming down with sickness because of all the things that are
coming out of her, pollution and so on. That is why I came here, to show
people, that they need more understanding.
The government should realize that Mother Earth is sick. I have been heaving
a lot these days, and I really want it to be healed.
All these officials, they have been starving people, confiscating our
livestock. Not respecting the Great Spirit who created the World, how Indian
people and their languages were put in different areas.
I am traveling a lot around the country for my children, grandchildren and
generations to come. I want them to grow up in a good way. The mining is too
much and there is money. We are suffering from U.S. Energy utilities. All
Indians are facing the same, we are all told our; and is NOT ours. We are
put hereby creator to be on the land and respect it. Then these “visitors”
came to mine the country.
When you have a pinprick on your finger, just take it off and the pain will
go away. But there are too many pins on the Mother Earth. Barbed wire is all
over the country, dividing the people.

Louise Benally, Big Mountain Resistor

I came to New York to call for a promotion of energy conservation from
fossil burning fuels to renewable, environmentally safe energy. Due to
Global Warming impacts, which in our case we feel the roots start where we
live, where they pull the coal out of the ground. Producing chemical
contamination in the air and water and then shipping the coal out in all
directions using the only clean drinking water source in our region at no
cost to the coal company at over one billion gallons per year. This is the
amount of water Peabody Coal Co. is using to slurry coal.
We want Lehman Brothers to invest in renewable energy promoting to
renewable, safe fuel. The effects of global warming have no limits; it
cannot be stopped unless balance is restored.
Human beings must act and educate each other about disimbalance that is
taking place in nature from the global warming and the shrinking of the
water supply. The good water if getting less and less and the air has
already been under attack. We all need to make that step towards global
change in energy development. If we take all the resources out of the earth,
it will lose balance with the moon. The moon controls many different
energies and elements, including the ocean. It will get out of control if we
don’t change things now.
Kids can talk to their parents or relatives about the impacts. We are
turning to Lehman Brothers shareholders to correct these environmental
problems because they are paying for these operations. We want them to pay
for the changes that effect all levels of human life including human rights
and religious freedom rights.
If we want to see the future, then we can’t ignore the problem. The poles
are melting and we have to do something to change it now. It’s here now!
This problem with Global Warming is here. If we don’t deal with it, it will
only get worse. I don’t think its fair that a few elite people have control
of the Earth to destruct an destroy it.
Once the shareholders of Lehman Brothers Corp/Peabody Coal Co. understand
maybe they are already suffering from the rolling blackouts or they will be
here soon.
If we create this world to come out of balance then no federal tax dollar
can fix it. Nature doesn’t understand money.

_

Greetings fellow supporters,

The traditional Indigenous delegation (including members of the Dineh, Hopi
and Lakota nations) who traveled to NY for Lehman Brothers Shareholders
meeting has arrived home. The organizers have asked me to post the
statements made by some of the traditional delegates, while a summary of the
visit is prepared. For those of you whose computers are able, an interview
with some of the delegaton from Democracy Now (nationally broadcast) is
available on Real Audio at http://www.pacifica.org in the Democracy Now archives.
The show was aired April 3, the morning of the shareholders meeting.

With thanks to the delegation who traveled so far and all those who keep
them in their prayers

Sharon Lungo
Action Resource Center

___________________________________
ACTION RESOURCE CENTER
P.O. Box 2104 Venice, Ca 90294
(310) 396-3254 ph (310) 392-9965 fax
www.arcweb.org, slungo@enviroweb.org

"We must become the change we want to see" -Mahatma Gandhi