07.10.06
by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today
Brenda Norrell Indian Country -- Hope MacDonald-LoneTree
TUBA CITY, Ariz. - Speaking out against the Navajo Hopi Land Settlement Act of 2005,
known also as Senate Bill 1003, Navajo councilman Hope MacDonald-LoneTree said the
U.S. government is treating Navajos the same way Iraqi are treated, with disregard
to rebuilding nations that have been devastated.
''The job ahead is bigger than trying to rebuild Iraq after bombing the entire
infrastructure and disrupting their way of life. The federal government cannot just
walk off and complain about the amount of federal monies expended,'' said LoneTree,
Navajo council delegate for Tuba City and daughter of former Navajo Chairman Peter
MacDonald.
''Money can be recouped, but lives lost and ruination of lives is far more
devastating and morally wrong and cannot be recouped. The government needs to
apologize and fix the mess they created,'' LoneTree told Indian Country Today. She
said a study is necessary to determine exactly where funds should and need to go.
Sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the bill would bring about the closure of
the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation.
Even after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, LoneTree said, residents were given the
opportunity of a study to determine the damages and needs.
Further, she said U.S. congressmen should visit Navajo families in the affected area
and see what misery Navajos have been forced to live with.
''I can't imagine anyone who would be so heartless to sponsor such a bill and yet
not visit these areas and people to see the devastation they have endured for years.
As well, those who are supporting this bill are not willing to have a study done to
show the negative affects on the region and people. Even after Hiroshima, a study
was made to avoid similar human tragedy.''
LoneTree said congressmen have dealt recklessly with the lives of people about whom
they know little or nothing.
''It's important for us to tell the world our problems and suggest our solutions.
The solution is not just to continue the same old relocation program, but to end
this one and replace it with a meaningful program to get the people out of poverty,
properly resettle people, re-establish their economic self-sufficiency.
''It's so sad to note what is going on here now after 30 years of destruction of
innocent souls and half a billion dollars later. We, the Navajo people, have wanted
to end the relocation bill back in the '70s and '80s before it caused irreparable
harm to thousands of our people.''
LoneTree pointed out that Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and then Sen. Dennis
DeConcini, D-N.M., introduced a bill in 1982 to repeal the relocation law. However,
the bill died without a hearing.
''Now that the law has done its dirty work and left thousands of our people,
innocent people, homeless, infirmed, jobless and human wrecks because they ended up
on the wrong side of the line drawn by the feds, the federal government wants to
terminate the relocation act because it is costing too much money.
''It's like saying, after slaughtering several helpless human beings, 'We better put
our swords away because we don't have anyone to use on it anymore; besides, many
have made a career out of using the sword and it's costing too much money to keep
the swords sharp.'''
LoneTree said that S. 1003 is ''30 years and nearly a billion dollars too late.''
She praised the tireless efforts of the Navajo elderly women who emerged as warriors
in the battle to remain on their homeland on Black Mesa, including Roberta
Blackgoat, Katherine Smith, Alice Benally and the many others who fought to have the
relocation law repealed.
LoneTree said decades of these Navajo women's lives were spent in battle to repeal
the law ''while there was still daylight to happiness.''
''It should be stressed over and over that the government created a big mess,
sorrow, despair and human wreckage. They cannot now just walk away from it. There
has to be a plan as to how these displaced innocent people can put their lives back
together.''
LoneTree said the blundering has been costly.
''The Navajo tribe is spending monies they don't have - just to pay for the federal
government's goof in not properly defining who is supposed to live where - moreover
to make arbitrary boundary lines to move people like they were animals.''
The Navajo Nation government has opposed the bill. The Hopi Tribe, however, supports
S. 1003, but opposes the House draft version of the bill, Navajo Hopi Settlement
Amendments of 2006.
Hopi Chairman Ivan L. Sidney testified before the House Com-mittee on Resources on
June 20.
''The Hopi Tribe supports the Committee's efforts through S. 1003 to bring to a
close a difficult chapter in the long struggle of the Hopi Tribe to protect its
Reservation from encroachment and to regain full jurisdictional control over Hopi
lands,'' Sidney told the committee.
The Hopi Tribe said it has lost 40 percent of its reservation - approximately
911,000 acres - to the Navajo Nation because of encroachment and overdue action by
the United States. The Hopi Tribe supports closure of the relocation office and
culmination of the relocation benefits process.
However, Sidney said the Hopi Tribe opposes the House version of the bill, sponsored
by Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.
Sidney told the House committee, ''The bill starts from the false premise that
passage of the 1974 Act was a 'grave error' on the part of Congress. Hopi cannot
accept that premise. The 1974 Act turned back the tide of Navajo encroachment onto
the Hopi reservation and marked the beginning of a long road to recovery for the
Hopi Tribe - recovery of a small portion of our original reservation and a recovery
of full jurisdiction by the Hopi over our land. Now that we are nearly at the end of
that long road, we do not want to be sent back to square one and forced to defend
all that has been gained.''
Sidney said this was not the time to open old wounds.
''In summary, the Hopi Tribe opposes the draft House bill. It is completely contrary
to the interest of the Hopi Tribe to reopen old wounds with the Navajo and rehash
the question of who suffered what as a result of the land dispute. It is long past
time to put all of this behind us and allow both tribes to go on with their full
attention focused on the business of providing secure and economically viable
homelands for our respective people. I urge this Committee to reconsider the
advisability of moving forward with a bill that will pit the Hopi and Navajo against
each other on issues that Congress and the Courts have worked so hard and so long to
bring to an end.''
Council Delegate Hope MacDonald LoneTree
20th Navajo Nation Council
P.O. Box 792
Tuba City, AZ 86045