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Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation speaks out in defense of Mother Earth

'Sovereignty' is not just rhetoric for those live it

By Brenda Norrell

BIG MOUNTAIN, Ariz. - Navajo, Hopi and Lakota elders and spiritual leaders told stockholders of Lehman Brothers in New York it is time for the spoilers of the Earth to listen to the caretakers of the Earth because time is running out for mankind.

Leonard Benally, upon returning home to Big Mountain, said the delegation told the parent company of Peabody Coal that it is time to transform operations to renewable forms of energy, including solar and wind power.

"It was like opening this marble door to the Lehman Brothers. We got our foot in there. They were willing to listen. By going there, the delegation touched their hearts

Benally said the delegation also dispelled myths.

"They say it's a land dispute, but it is not. The traditional Hopi and Navajo are standing together, they are the original inhabitants of Black Mesa. We are the caretakers."

Benally said the people have been struggling for 32 years because of the turmoil created by Hopi and Navajo tribal leaders intent on making money from the 92 billion tons of coal beneath the ground at Black Mesa.

But, he said, the resistance actually goes back 500 years to the Spanish invasion, followed by the European invasion. Finally there was the Kit Carson invasion.

"That's when the people were put in the death camps." While Navajos were incarcerated at Fort Sumner, he said, "The military made promises, mountains of promises they never kept."

While the Navajo Nation government in Window Rock celebrates Sovereignty Day in April, Benally said tribal leaders force their own people to suffer respiratory disease and death from coal mining, sacrificing them for mining royalties.

"Sovereignty Day? That's a joke. For us, we live it. They oppress their own race. They make them bleed."

In the 1970s, the Four Corners region was considered a National Sacrifice area, but Benally said it is time to change that classification to a National Historic Site.

"The sacredness is still here. Mother Earth is still here. She still breathes. As long as the air blows, the rivers run, Indigenous people will be out here."

Benally said the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation moved in solidarity with the Zapatistas whose caravan through Mexico gave them hope. "We felt the wind, it came from the South. It is telling the Indigenous people to rise up for their beliefs, their culture. These things are not being respected by anyone but the Indigenous people."

In New York, Joe Chasing Horse, Sundance Chief at Big Mountain, addressed the protest rally and spoke to Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Fund stockholders.

"You have taken all of our land, now we have come to show you how to take care of it," Chasing Horse said.

A traditional Hopi elder in the delegation told stockholders, "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," said the Hopi elder who asked that his name not be published in the media.

"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."

He told stockholders that Hopis never signed a treaty with the United States and the current Hopi Tribal Council is not legitimate since it was created by less than 30 percent of the people.

Referring to the beginning of the turmoil, he said, "John Boyden was a lawyer who worked for Peabody Coal. He was instrumental to the creation of the Hopi Tribal Council.

"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.

"Our roots are rooted in our villages and it goes up to the whole universe. If we break these roots the world will get out of balance.

"I pray for you and hope that we open your eyes and you find the majority in your heart."

Roberta Blackgoat, longtime resister and sheepherder from Cactus Valley, told stockholders the region of San Francisco Peaks is holy to the Navajo people. Mining in the area of this sacred mountain is the same as desecrating an altar and church. It is making the people sick.

"We can not go away to other places," Blackgoat said, adding that livestock confiscation is "starving the people."

"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."

Arlene Hamilton, coordinator of the Weaving For Freedom project, personally bought two shares in the corporation to ensure entrance into the stockholders meeting. She and Benally negotiated with Lehman Brothers to allow the elders time to address stockholders.

"These were some of the richest men and women in the world. The delegation was so beautiful, and so with the truth. Their presence was holy."

In Flagstaff, Hamilton said Lehman Brothers and Peabody Coal now have the opportunity to make a difference in the future of mankind.

"We want the dehumanizing and militarizing to stop. There is a lot of suffering going on. We want to make sure the ceremonies are not surrounded by guns and the people have clean drinking water.

"There is no life without water."

Hamilton said Navajo elders resisting relocation often become dehydrated during the hot summer months because of the scarcity of clean water, while Peabody Coal pumps 10,000 gallons of water a minute to slurry coal.

She has taken human rights concerns to Peabody management for years, but she said they have done little to improve the quality of living as promised.

"It's really just diversion and distraction while the people are suffering out there. Everything is based on making way for mining."

The delegation presented a list of demands to Lehman Brothers, demanding that Peabody leave the water and coal alone because they are the lungs and liver of Mother Earth. They called for a halt to mining and the initiation of a solar project, availability of clean drinking water, and a halt to military overflights and the intimidation of elders and youths by armed rangers.

Hamilton said the Weaving For Freedom project is a collective of Dine' weavers in resistance struggling for religious freedom to practice their ancient craft while protecting their sacred land.

Weaving For Freedom was named the "Finest Craft Designers of the World 2001" by the United Nations Arts Commission. The non-profit organization has sold $1 million of Navajo tapestries and returned the money to Navajo weavers. Hamilton has been arrested 12 times, but never charged, for intervening during BIA confiscations of Navajo livestock on Hopi Partitioned Lands. The Hopi Tribe officially excluded her from the HPL, but she said she would appeal.

Hamilton said, "This work is very risky now. We protect each other by traveling in large groups."

Meanwhile, Peabody released a study defending its use of water from the of D- and N-Aquifer systems in northern Arizona.

Peabody Spokesperson Beth Sutton said the study shows "long-term water use will not pose any permanent or significant impacts to the aquifer or other water users." She said the two-year, $2 million study confirms that the use of aquifer water to convey coal from the Black Mesa Mine to a Nevada power plant will not significantly affect the integrity of the 7,500 square-mile aquifer or community springs.

Within the Black Mesa basin, the Navajo Aquifer holds more than 400 million acre-feet of water.

Sutton said, "mining will use less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the total volume of water stored in the aquifer during the life of the operations, which equates to displacing less than half of a beverage can from a 55-gallon drum."

The Black Mesa and Kayenta surface mines have provided low-cost electricity to major cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix for 30 years, she said. Peabody's two Black Mesa mines inject $2 million weekly into Navajo and Hopi communities, more than $1.8 billion since mining began. The mines provide 700 jobs.

Benally said, "The whole thing is about materialism, money. In our culture, money doesn't matter. It is about how you live in harmony with nature, in harmony with your prayers.

"That's why we are fighting for our lands, even though the media and politicians are telling us we don't have a right to exist.

"The traditionalists have the wisdom, we are the wisdom keepers."