Home > Latest Information

Black Mesa Indigenous Support P.O. Box 23501, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002  Message Voice Mail: 928.773.8086 Email: blackmesais@riseup.net

McCain bill would dissolve U.S. relocation office

Webmaster Headlines / Navajo Times 0728/05

WASHINGTON - The Navajo Nation would support a proposal by Sen. John McCain,
R-Ariz., to dissolve the federal Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation Office but
only if further hardship is eliminated and the action is not simply to save
money, according to a news release from the Navajo Nation President’s office.
McCain, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, received testimony
July 21 on his proposal to amend the 1974 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act.
His proposal (S. 1003) would dissolve the relocation office as of Sept. 30,
2008, and its remaining duties would be transferred to a new division within
the Interior Department.
During the July 21 hearing, McCain said the program has cost too much and
lasted too long. The program, passed by Congress over the objections of the
Navajo Nation, was proposed as a $40 million program to build homes and move
10,000 Navajos and about 100 Hopis over 12 years.
It has ballooned to $483 million and has lasted 30 years and is still
incomplete.
Testifying before McCain’s committee were President Joe Shirley Jr., Hopi
Chairman Wayne Taylor, Navajo Nation Navajo-Hopi Land Commission Director Roman
Bitsuie, and Navajo Nation Attorney General Louis Denetsosie.
Shirley said the Navajo Nation would support the bill as long as any
proposed solution does not cause more hardships for affected residents, and that
closure of the program not stem merely from a desire to save money for the
federal government.
Taylor said the Hopi Tribe’s position is to see all relocations completed
before the office is closed.
“Evictions should be mandatory,” Taylor said.
Shirley said, “Now that the Navajo people have had to live through the
nightmare of relocation, we do not think federal budgetary issues alone should be
a basis for limiting funds to complete the program, and doing so in a way
that brings humanity to what has otherwise been an inhumane process.”
When asked by McCain whether the relocation program was voluntary,
Christopher Bavasi, the federal relocation office director, said it was, somewhat.
“This was something less than a voluntary program but it has been operated
as a voluntary program,” he said.
Bavasi said the program has also been encumbered by continuous court
battles.
“In hindsight, maybe we shouldn’t have pass the law in the first place,”
McCain remarked.
Shirley said another concern is the 1.5-million-acre Bennett Freeze, which
was instituted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and prohibited all development
and improvements since 1966.
Calling the Bennett Freeze “horrendous,” “a national shame” and a “
disgrace,” McCain asked Shirley whether he believed the freeze should be lifted.
“Yes, I’d like to see it lifted,” Shirley said. “I think that’s what’s
needed.”
However, Bavasi said it “wouldn’t be wise” to pass a law specifically to
lift the Bennett Freeze, saying it could result in chaos. However Navajo
officials said that did not occur when the freeze was temporarily lifted in 1993.
Denetsosie said that the Navajo Nation has paid the Hopi Tribe $29 million
in payments and spent more than $800,000 in attorney fees as a result of the
relocation act.
He added that there are 296 late applicants currently in process before the
federal relocation office that may be certified for benefits. But almost none
could be certified by the Sept. 30, 2005, deadline, he said.
He said the Paragon Ranch in New Mexico had been purchased for the Navajo
Nation with the intention that its coal reserves be used for the Navajos. But
the land has yet to be transferred to the nation, he said.
McCain said the relocation act is an example in which “the law of unintended
consequences” may have prevailed.
“No one thought in 1974 that these issues would be unresolved” in 2005, he
said. “I’d like to put these issues behind us so we can begin to provide
health care and housing that is terribly behind the rest of the country.”

http://un-equaled.com/NTBLOG/?p=73

http://www.navajotimes.com