(The below transcript was taken from R. Dorman's Big Mtn List and was

transcribed by Stuart Liederman)

The attached is my personal transcription from audio tapes made during

last Friday's open forum in New York City concerning Dineh spirituality,

religion and grievances at Black Mesa.

During their stay in New York, the Dineh representatives met with United

Nations' officials and NGO's in advance of a February 2 visit to Black

Mesa of a special human rights rapporteur on religious intolerance. The

transcription is essentially a verbatim record of the forum's testimony

and dialogue, with the exception of some place and person names that are

misspelled and still need correcting.

I cannot take credit for the success of planning and conducting the

meeting; that was capably done by others who have been working in and

around the issue for several years. I was an attendee whose research

and expertise is about environmental refugees and ecological restoration

of damaged homelands. In this case, I have compared the plight of Dineh

to those of other refugees from energy development projects worldwide.

I believe there are many other concerned scientists who now may join the

Dineh cause.

Because time is of the essence, and the NGO delegation is trying to

raise approx. $20,000 for expenses for their trip to witness this

historic meeting on sacred Dineh ground, I thought I'd send this to you

for distribution in part or in entirety, at your discretion, but please

append this explanatory note.

The open forum was extremely well-conducted and the Dineh presentations

very eloquent and persuasive. Any mistakes in the transcript are solely

my own and I welcome any comments or corrections. Copies of my tapes

are available in exchange for contributions, which will be used toward

expenses for the trip out West. Thank you.

============================

DRAFT OF JANUARY 19, 1998

Record of Public Forum

"PROPHECIES, DREAMS, STRUGGLES:

THE CULTURE AND RELIGION OF THE DINEH"

Friday, January 16, 1997

Church Center for the United Nations

777 United Nations Plaza, New York City

- - - - - - -

I. INTRODUCTION TO THE FORUM

Liberato C. Bautista

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Church Center for the United

Nations and welcome to this forum. My name is Liberato Bautista.

I am the main representative of the UN Office of the General

Board of Church and Society to the United Nations, and we're glad

that you're here. The World Council of Churches, the Women in

Development represented here by Maria Arias-Zeballos, and our

board has served for several weeks now as a steering committee in

preparation for this forum and for some other activities that

will culminate in a delegation that is going to Black Mesa in the

first week of February.

We are very glad that you came to this forum. The forum is not

limited to the issues that are going to be investigated by Mr.

Abdelfattah Amor who is the Special Rapporteur for Religious

Intolerance for the United Nations, working under the Human

Rights mechanism of the Commission on Human Rights. Instead, we

thought that this public forum will cover the entirety, and when

we talk of indigenous knowledge, there is no separation of the

body and soul [contrasted to] that we have come to know in the

Western conceptual world, and religion is life itself. I'm not

going to explain because they will explain that in ways that will

be fruitful to all of us. So, without any further ado, I would

like to call on a medicine person of the Dineh, Avery Denny, to

give the invocation for our meeting this afternoon.

- - - - - - -

II. INVOCATION

Avery Denny

We shall sing a song and then proceed with a short prayer that

will give us strength for what is going to be like an impossible

task but we are going to feel like we have the strength. We will

have a prayer and a song in our heart and our mind to do

something that's good, to bring out the truth, and that will be

our power to solve our problems within the United States and then

in the world community. That's going to be our vision; that's

going to be our goal. That's how we are going to go. So, I

would like to support that with a short prayer and with a song.

[sings in native language, followed by a prayer, then continues

speaking:]

May this song be in our heart and our mind, and echo in our heart

and our mind. With it, we will feel strong and have this song in

our heart and so we will be positive, have a positive mind and

attitude. That is the purpose of this prayer. Thank you.

[Dineh matriarch Katherine Smith then offers a brief prayer in

native language, and ritual gesture]

- - - - - - -

III. WORDS OF WELCOME

Liberato Bautista

Thom White Wolf Fassett, the General Secretary of the General

Board of Church and Society will us the worlds of welcome.

Thom White Wolf Fassett

Thank you and welcome to our brothers and sisters from Dineh

country, and to you who have joined us for this open forum or

briefing this afternoon. As you noticed, once we have concluded

the open forum, we will be moving into another configuration with

the NGO's (non-governmental organizations) who will be

accompanying us to Black Mesa.

However, I want to say that my name is Thom Fassett. My given

name is "Shumanikuska" [sp?] which in the foreign language is

"White Wolf". I am of the Six Nations Iroquois, the Hod'noshone

[sp?] from Western New York State. We have for a long time, from

the Long House, established relationships with the indigenous

peoples, our native brothers and sisters from the southwestern

part of the United States. It is a very important time in the

history of our nations' experiences with the United Nations.

Since 1948, indigenous peoples in the United States have been

petitioning [the United Nations]; some have called it, from one

interpretation, the House of Mica.

We remember, in our corporate memory in the Long House, the time

when the people in the Southwest came through and place the first

prayer feather in the beam of the Long House in 1948, as they

came to New York to petition the United Nations, as one of the

United Nations, but were only to be turned back. And we are

facing today the challenge of unfinished business. So the

project, the victories if there are any, are small and they come

in short breaths. But we hope that the progress we are beginning

to make now in the context of the United Nations is going to be

significant in the lives of people everywhere, indigenous people

not only in the United States but elsewhere.

The General Board of Church and Society is one of the oldest

NGO's of the United Nations. We were formed as an NGO just as

the United Nations was born. Later on, in the 1950s, we built

this building and it was a vision of what the world might look

like in the future, and the ways in which we addressed the

concerns of humankind as the world evolved in its social and

economic development. We, today, still believe and hope that

this process will give life and give birth to new means and ways

of people discussing how they live together, and in this context

today we are talking about how indigenous people survive and how

concerns are addressed and how grievances are redressed.

We in the Six Nations, the Hod'noshone, have known this for a

long time. You may know the story of Duska'he [sp?], the chief

who, many years ago, traveled to the United Nations to petition

on behalf of the native people of the continent, on behalf of the

nation's peoples. So, here we are again, today, with more hope

perhaps, with a better promise, although most promises have been

broken, and with a greater expectation that the world community

might begin to listen in a new way to the concerns of struggling

people, especially in the indigenous context. And toward that

goal, we are gathered here today in support of the people of the

Dineh, to address the international fora and all nations of

[inaudible] to call attention to the great need to redress the

concerns and grievances and human rights of indigenous people,

especially the Dineh.

We in the United Methodist Church have been engaged in these

kinds of activities since we established our relationship with

the United Nations, and today we continue to work in places such

as native Hawaiian claims, not only the indigenous concerns in

the United States of America, with respect to issues of

sovereignty and jurisdiction, but also with the native Hawaiians,

the people of New Zealand, with the native peoples of Australia,

Indonesia, Central and South America and other places throughout

the world too numerous to mention where similar concerns are

being dealt with on every front.

We hope that what emerges from this event and from the visit of

the Human Rights Rapporteur, on behalf of the United Nations, in

the Dineh country, will provide a model whereby native peoples

can address their concerns that have faced us for so long. It

has been said that there is no word for "removal" or "relocation"

in the Dineh language. Is that correct? [Katherine Smith nods

"yes".] We know what happens when relocation takes place. One

only needs to look, as I was reminded yesterday by some of our

native colleagues in Washington, D.C. where our headquarters are,

that during the Eisenhower administration, relocation programs

were undertaken to remove, to relocate, native peoples from

native land bases--the reservations--to the cities, with promises

of jobs and housing and job training, only to realize that it was

another word for genocide, it was another word for assimilation;

it was another way to limit and dispose of the indigenous

population in North America, in the United States. I believe

that it would be the sentiment of most of us gathered here that

we do not want that to happen again.

So we are trying to stand as...we as the Board of Church and

Society and the United Methodist Church, are simply saying, "We

are standing with the Dineh." It is not our agenda; it is by

means of supporting their agenda. If we can be instruments for

accomplishing a task which is long overdue, if we can serve as an

instrument in enabling a voice to be heard, if we can serve as an

instrument for the world states and the nations, to be addressed,

and to invite them to a participatory role in resolving some of

the most critical concerns facing indigenous people today, that

is really our role and the only role that we have to play. So I

welcome you and we'll proceed.

- - - - - - -

IV. SHORT VIDEO PRESENTATION

Liberato Bautista

Thank you very much. We'll show you part of the award-winning

documentary on the Dineh ["Broken Rainbow"]. It garnered the

Academy award for best documentary in 1985. At some point, if

you want to finish [viewing] the whole documentary, contact our

office; we have a copy of it. But five-to-seven minutes should

give you an intro into this struggle, and most probably hopefully

of the topography of the area we are talking about. For those of

you who are not joining us in the beautiful place in Black Mesa,

maybe the video will give you some inkling of what you are

missing so that you might just decide to join us on the first of

February.

- - - - - - -

Excerpt from "Broken Rainbow", an Earthworks film by Maria Florio

and Victoria Mudd, 1985, distributed by Direct Cinema Limited,

P.O. Box 69799, Los Angeles, California 90069:

[Opening scene in Washington, D.C., helicopter flies over

government buildings, Navajo protestors chant in native language

and marching with placards. Actor Martin Sheen narrates:]

"In 1974, Congress passed a law ordering ten thousand Navajo off

their land, land the government says belongs to the Hopi tribe.

Congress has ordered the Navajo to move by 1986, despite the

protests of the traditional Hopi and Navaho people."

[Peter MacDonald, Chairman, Navajo Tribal Council testifies

during hearing of Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs:]

"Mr. Chairman, I am here today to discuss the tragedy of

relocating over nine thousand of my tribal people from their

native homeland. More than seventy-five percent of the Navajo

relocatees will be condemned to a life of misery, poverty and

alienation."

[New Mexico Senator Dennis DeConcini asks another witness:]

"Just how would you have any income if you are forced to move?

Do you have any other way of making a living other than livestock

raising?"

[Mae Horseson answers, translated from native language:]

"I make my living with the sheep. You don't have to carry them

on your back, you just herd them. This is how I live. I will

not relocate. If I were offered a new home, I would be a

stranger in such a place. I wouldn't know how to operate the

heating or the lighting system. And the expense, I'm sure, would

be tremendous. How would I pay for these utilities? I have no

income and have never been to any school."

[DeConcini asks MacDonald:]

"Assuming we go through with this destructive effort, how and

where would she be relocated on the Navajo reservation?"

[MacDonald answers:]

"Senator DeConcini, there is no place on the present Navajo

reservation to which she can relocate to carry on the way of life

that she has described.

[Sheen narrates over animated map of Navajo and Hopi lands:]

"The United States government created reservations for the Navajo

and Hopi tribes more than a century ago. Navajo lived near the

Hopi villages long before the reservation line was drawn and the

government allowed them to stay, until now. Today, the

government is spending one-half billion dollars to partition the

Hopi reservation between the two tribes and to move the Navajo

out of the Hopi half. Most of the Navajo are being moved into

border towns hundreds of miles from their homeland.

[Hosteen Nez speaks outside his home, translated from native

language:]

"Before moving, I was living very well. The sheep and the cows

were like a bank. It was good when I relied on them. Now, I

fall into hunger. My shoes are all worn out and that's the

truth. [scene shows him shopping in a grocery store] Now, I have

to pay for everything, even the water. I owe taxes, too. I just

suffer from all the bills."

[scene at checkout counter; grocery checkout girl says:]

"Eleven-nineteen is your change; ten, eleven, and nineteen cents.

Thank you. Have a nice day, now."

[Hosteen hobbles with cane across parking lot; Sheen narrates:]

"When Hosteen learned that his hoogan had been deliberately

burned down, he suffered a stroke. While he was in the hospital,

his tract house was repossessed for non-payment of taxes and

utility bills.

"There is no word for "relocation" in the Navajo language. To

relocate is to disappear and never be seen again."

[Aerial scenes of mesa land; performer/composer Laura Nyro

sings:]

"The old people of the Earth tell stories. An old woman of the

old ways she says: I recall my joy in better days. The old

warriors of the open rainbow say, "Tell me, is it true? Tell

me...is it true? At the edge where I live, at the very edge

where I live holds a miracle."

[office scene, journalist/author Jerry Kammer:]

"We have this extraordinary group of Americans whose culture is

fading. It is under all sorts of pressures, which are attempting

to adapt gradually, which is making all sorts of compromises and

is subject to all sorts of stress that now, through this act of

Congress is being terminated; it's being invalidated; it's being

forced to get off its center, the land, that's the integrating

principle of the culture. And I say, "Why?"

[dynamite blast at open face of coal mine]

- - - - - - -

V. INTRODUCTION OF PRESENTERS

Liberato Bautista

We will now proceed with our main presentation.

Marsha Monestersky

It is wonderful to be here and to see all of you. My name is

Marsha Monestersky. I am a consultant to the sovereign Dineh

nation and I am also co-chair to the NGO Human Rights Caucus at

the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. It is

wonderful to see you all today and to see the support for the

Dineh. I will have the honor to introduce to you Katherine

Smith, whose picture is on the cover of "Broken Rainbow" and who

was at the Academy Awards presentation.

One would think that a video with the power of "Broken Rainbow"

that won an Academy award would have stopped the relocation, but

it is going to take all of your help in order to do that. I'd

like to introduce Katherine Smith of Big Mountain.

- - - - - - -

VI. MAIN PRESENTATION

Katherine Smith

Welcome everybody in here. I did not go to school and don't have

very good English because I am the eldest of the [inaudible]. So

it is very very hard what the government is doing to my people.

I don't think it is fair to do to the American Indian, to treat

like that.

I heard about it at that time, but I was not ready. I don't know

how many years ago that Columbus came to the United States, and

the Indians--all different kinds of Indians--were already in the

United States. At that time, all the United States were covered

with "red", not "white". Today, the United States are all

"white", but there are still a few of us and holding our

relations, yet.

In the world, the end is coming because there are so few of

Indian relations left. Because all their religion is going to be

gone, pretty soon, it will be the end of the world. I don't know

what Washington, D.C. is going to do then. Are they going to put

on a law about the end of the world?

The religion of the Indians? Who are the ones that still hold

onto the Earth yet today? Because they are from the Earth, from

the sky, the moon, the sun; that is where we come from. It is

our religion and our Prayer Way. There was a [train ?] born, and

that is taking care of us today: [the reason for] the tornadoes

and hurricanes. We are the children from that. So, are the

Washington, D.C. Congress...are they going to put a law on that

too? Are they going to stop the terrible earthquakes and

tornadoes? Are they going to stop that? Another thing, myself,

I just don't like: to visit the moon and to visit the stars and

everything, [because] this is our religion.

So, at my home, they put a fence around us in 1976. That is

where I have been arrested once in 1980 or 1982. And I said

those white men's law is just a paper and we traditional people,

our laws are the Earth, our laws are the sun, the sky, the moon,

the stars and the Way. This is our law. How can they work

together, the paper and the Earth? I haven't been making the

trouble; the government is making the trouble. Sometimes I got

so mad when I was all by myself, I got to thinking about the

flag, the United States flag: it stands for "stealer", "killer",

"cheating". "This is what the flag is for," I said.

And the Earth is the Mother. There is nothing, nothing, nothing

that is bad from the Earth. Even the company is digging down

into the Earth to get some coals and water. The Mother Earth is

who is raising the people. Say, right here, there was a high

building; I don't know how many millions of people live in New

York, but the Mother Earth is the one that raises you...not the

flag. This is what is going on. Our new generation is very

different now. My grandkids, they don't understand my word; this

is terrible.

These Congressmen passed this [relocation] law on people who

don't understand English. Is that fair? They [Dineh] just don't

know how to read, [so] they just don't know the law. These

Congressmen just did it, they passed it on the ladies. We didn't

even see the judges who were telling the law; I don't know how

old they were or what they looked like. We are on the land and

they just said, "This land is the Hopi land. You're just

visiting here; you just don't know where you come from." That's

what the Congressmen said to us.

But I've been born there--and generation and generation--and we

know where our sacred places are and our prayer to the Earth.

This is the main thing we are worrying about. That the people

don't understand English, and they gave a paper that said, "This

is the law: you have to go, relocate from your land, from your

cradle." This is what the Congress did in 1976. And I am still

there. I never signed a paper on my name, even when there was

another law. I don't know how many laws there were; I never

cared about it. I never saw the paper that said, "This is

another law, and another law."

I live maybe thirty miles away from that coal mine, Peabody.

Where they put a fence around us, we're just in prison there. We

can't fix our home, even if the windows break, we are not to do

that because it is against the law, against the flag. And then,

our house is so old, our floor is cracking and everything because

of the mine. You know they dynamite the Earth and make the Earth

shake the houses. It's terrible, breaking down the house, but

we're not to fix it. [There is] no running water at home, my

home. No electricity. And if you have to call some where, you

have to go more miles to get to a telephone, forty or seventy or

twenty miles to get there.

This is how the government has treated us. And then the

government took this land from us, millions of acres, for no

money. They just took it. And the people there were about ten

thousand...with no place to go. Our chairman came out, as you

see on "Broken Rainbow", saying that there is no place to go,

that's what he said. Ten thousand people. "Of my people," he

said. It's true, but there was, in "Broken Rainbow"...in some

places it's not right, and in some places, it's true. Why they

do that is to put on a white man to explain the movie. To me, it

is to work on the United Nations. It's true what you see in the

picture, but the explanation is not right. So, this is how that

my home was a terrible place.

Last week, our lawyer told us that we are not going to able to

raise our sheep. We still have sheep, a horse and cow and a

goat. That's what we live on. A good breeder, they can live

from their sheep, from their wool. This is how we make our money

to buy food or gas, and now from Washington, D.C. they are trying

to kill us this way. They are going to put our sheep in the pen,

and the horse and the cow, and never go out. If they get loose,

they'll take them away from us. They are doing it already; they

took our cow, they took our horse and the sheep.

They call it "impoundment" and we have to pay for our own animals

back. [We have to pay] even our friends [for] our own horse, our

own cow. But he stole it, but then we pay to get it back. They

called it impoundment. That is how they are working on us. And

those prisoner people, they call them "HPL" told us that we have

to pay support for the fire to heat the hogan--our house.... And

they took the wool away from you. This is how bad it is, for

twenty years now. But we are still there yet.

I hope today--with everybody in here supporting the investigation

of this place--they always said that "1882, this was their door"

[i.e. when Navajos entered the Southwest]. At that time, all the

Navajo people didn't understand English; nobody, even. When I

was a little girl, I never saw white people. At that time, there

were no white people around my home. But the Congressmen said,

"In 1882, only the Hopi was there." It's not true. We never saw

the Hopi's home out there. Just those they call by old pottery,

they called them "Anasazi"; that was the end of the people of

eighty thousand years ago. That was the end. The Hopi said that

that was their pottery and their home, but it's not true. So,

always, the Congress says, "In 1882, the Hopi was there." But

that's not true; nobody knows who took that line down about 1882.

I need this investigated, too. And thank you very much for this

today.

Oh yes, this "HPL" [Hopi Partition Land], the place inside. They

told us--my grandkids and my children--that they do not belong in

this dispute. And the people they relocated out, they have

children and they have grandchildren [but] they just counted the

old people, not the young ones. So in HPL, "The young

generation," they said, "has no land. Nothing belongs to the new

generation. So, when they decide to relocate out, the same new

generation don't have any homes, the relocation houses don't

belong to them." That's what they told us, too. So it's very

hard to think about this way: If you have kids and you have

grandchildren and you have a house and land, you know where you

are and who you are...and your grandchildren and your

grandchildren have to be here. This belongs to them. [Out

there] everything is settled, everything that belongs to the Hopi

is settled. You never see the Hopi living out there, so I just

don't know what's going on. Thank you.

- - - - - - -

Marsha Monestersky

I would like to introduce Avery Denny. He is a Night Way

Ceremony practitioner and he is an instructor at Dineh College in

Sadey [sp?], Arizona; a Navajo culture and holistic instructor.

Avery Denny

[greeting in native language, then continues in English] I

mentioned my name, the clan that I represent, and I mentioned

that I come from my sacred homeland called Dineh-ha [sp?]. And

it is really important for us to introduce ourselves like this

because of the print the print that's used that you've got on

your sheet there, the front cover...the introduction to clan. It

means a whole lot to introduce yourself to your fellow relatives,

to all the relations that we get in contact with, even to our own

new relations that we will establish.

As a Dineh, we are very holistic. We have a spiritual mind that

we use and a holistic use that we go by. Some people, they call

it "primitive mind" or "savage mind", but that is our

intelligency: to interrelate with nature and the elements, the

energy that's within these different creations, the natural

resources that we have. [This is] versus, I suppose, we call it

"Western mind" or "civilized mind". We don't know what really

civilized mind is; we haven't really understood what that means.

So, as a Navajo, as a Dineh, we still live off the land. We

still believe in the natural cosmic order of life, that is the

one that still governs, controls our lives, and we call that

"natural law". And then, the things that we use to pray, to

sing, to keep balance, to keep that harmony within this

creation...we still go by that. Through that, that's how we

introduce ourselves, because our introduction is very, very

important to us, because we come from the land and that's our

belief.

It's not written--or faith, our belief system--is not on a piece

of paper or in a book or anywhere. It is the air that we

breathe, that's our belief that gives us life. If it wasn't for

that, air would be dead. The water that we drink, that's our

belief. And then the food, the pollen, that we take and eat,

that's our nourishment and that's our medicine. That's how we

stay healthy, that's our wellness. And then, the fire, the light

that we have, the sunlight, the fire that burns within our

hoogans...represents our homeland.

If we ever did something wrong or contaminated [it] to control to

improve, we contaminate or bodies and our lives and our belief.

So we were told never to do this, but that's how it is today on

our land. It has been contaminated, they contaminated our lives,

they contaminated our soul, our mind, or body. There are

sicknesses, there are different diseases, and there is confusion,

and there is all these types of research being done to study the

Navajo, the Dineh people. We are the most studied group of

people within the United States.

[continued from Part I]

With the coming of the Westerners, we fought for our land. We

fought for our sacred homeland. We fought for our protection

against these people's ways to dominate, to control, to overpower

us. We protected our sacred land, our ceremonial belief, our

paraphernalia; we protected that. On behalf of that, we stood

there, and that hasn't changed yet today. We still are like

that. We still want to defend our land, we still want to defend

our children and our grandchildren. We still want to defend what

is roughly our: our mind, our body and soul, our belief, our

faith. We want to protect that, we want to speak on their

behalf. But a lot of times when we do that, we are branded with

different types of names, and then we become "savages", we become

"too primitive", we become "murderers", we become "thieves", and

that's how we are labeled a lot of times. That is all false and

all mistranslated. This was our right to stand and talk on our

behalf. We have a mind, we have a heart, we have feeling, we

have compassion, we have children, we have our people to speak on

behalf, you know.

And then, when there is economic trouble in the world, within

this world...for example, during World War II, our land was used

as a weapon and we never hesitated, we went to the front lines to

defend our land, our sacred mountains. The rest of the United

States of America they call "the fifty states". They fought for

Europe, they fought for France, they fought for their own

homeland where they came from. They fought to protect that land,

Europe. But as Indians, as Navajo, we fought our land. That's

how we see it and that's the reason why we use our language on

behalf of the whole world, for human rights: to protect the

rights of other human beings. We did that for the whole nation,

the whole government, the whole United Nations. We, as Navajo,

that's what we did.

So now, today, we use our songs and our prayer to protect the

nations. Now, we need you help, to protect our land, to save our

land, so that we can live in peace and balance. We want to get

out of this suffering that we see everyday in our lives. We wake

up and see the contamination, smoke. We see these hospitals that

the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs, US Department of Interior]

have; it seems like they are just growing, with more patients and

more sick people. It seems like it is just a game, to see more

people sick, so that money could come in to employ some of these

people.

We don't want to be guinea pigs, and we don't want to be an

instrument that's theirs just to get money. We want to heal, we

want to be alright. We want to be okay, again. We want our land

to mend, we want to heal our plants and herbs. We want to go out

there and practice our way of life--the way that was given to us.

We want to go out there and collect these plants and make sure

they have a place to grow, to make sure that there's a place we

could go and put our prayers out. We don't want anybody to stand

over us while we are singing our prayer. We want to have peace

and harmony. We want this given back to us; this is our right.

That's what we are here for.

And then, on top of that, we don't want anybody to escort us to

these sacred sites, to carry a gun behind us, so that we could

get something. We don't want permits, we don't want those types

of things. We want to be free on our own land to do the things

that were given to us to do by the Holy People that led us here.

That's what we want. We want freedom, we want our rights given

back to us. We want our children to grow so that could have a

home. Generations, one hundred years from now, we want our

children to live on this land that was given to us by the Holy

People. We want to live here. We want our root and our seed to

be here. We want our clan to be here, to generation to

generation. We don't want to lose our identity. We don't want

to lose our land, we want to keep it and we want to keep our

children to survive. We want to give them something: that's our

right to survive.

We don't know what "civilized mind" is. We don't know what it

is. If this civilized mind is what we call "to take somebody's

power", "to relocate somebody", we don't want that. Our own

primitive mind, spiritual mind, indigenous mind tells us that we

have a place, we have a home. We feel, then we feel and care for

other people. We have a feeling then. So, we want to keep that

for as long as we live at this home place.

The other night when I came here, I had a dream when I went to

bed, and I woke up. I realized that it was just a dream. I

dreamed that, just realized that our home has been dismantled,

destroyed, it had been burned by an unknown power, or source or

whatever, person, people, maybe a civilization. I don't know.

But I saw this home all burnt to the ground, just little traces

of it, that's where we come from. That's our home, that's our

home right there. And we want to build it back up, we want to

rejuvenate that, we want to reinspire, rededicate that. We want

to make it new, we want to build it anew.

And we want to go back in there and relight that fire in there

that represents our home, and we want to re-purify it. We want

to do it before you, when you get down there. We are going to

dedicate that hoogan. And we are going to rededicate it to be

new, and then and there we're going to sit and that's where we

are going to have [inaudible], that's where we are going to visit

and where we are going to talk about it, to see where we come

from, to see what we're taking about so that you could know and

understand. We want to build this home and make it really good

through this prayer and through this song that we're going to

sing there on top of this Black Mountain that's our home. We

will welcome you there like that and we will greet you there like

that, and that's how we are going to talk to one another.

The whole thing is based upon religion; that's what I was told.

My belief...if somebody was going to talk about the way I

believe, the way I say these songs...if they were going to

destroy or be prejudiced about these way, you are talking about

my Mother and you are talking about my Father. You are talking

about my Grandmother and my Grandfather and forefathers, leaders.

And I won't allow it, and I'm going to defend it on my behalf for

what it takes. That's how much we are talking about. Our heart

and our mind, our "[inaudible]", that's what we're talking about,

that's what it is.

And we are proud of it, too. We are not confused about it, us

right here. We don't have anything against other beliefs and

other ways, but that is where we come from. I believe, if you

put a pin over here and a pin over there and draw a straight line

across it, our religion, our faith and belief would be just

equivalent. The Holy People, God, Creator, it's that universal

belief and universal mind. It's people that are uneven in the

way they believe; it's human, you know. That's what it is. So I

believe it like that.

Our belief and our churches come together to do good for human

rights, to save these humans that are abused, to help them heal.

That's what I want, that's what I want and what I stand for and

what I believe in. And I appreciate this [forum], thank you very

much.

Dean Lauren [sp?]

My name is Dean Lauren and I am sometimes counsel to the Dineh.

I am here to introduce Carlos Begay, and I just want to take a

few moments...to tell you The Story of the Three Miracles. I

think this way, you'll understand a little bit about what's going

on, in addition to what these fine people have been telling you.

I think the best way to do that is, to introduce Carlos and how

he is going to tell you about mining and the history of his

family on the lands, and that is, of course, to give you a pop

quiz...just to make sure everybody is paying attention....

The first thing we have to understand is, "Where is Black Mesa?"

Now, here is Katherine Smith. She is the Grand Canyon; she is

the Mother. And we have to go east; east is over by the UN,

where the hope lies. So we have to go fifty miles east of the

Grand Canyon, that's where we find Black Mesa. It's that close

to the Grand Canyon.

Now, you have to also understand that Black Mesa is the world's

largest and richest coal mine. It has the highest grade coal

available in the United States. It's low in sulfur, it burns the

best. Black Mesa also has gas, petroleum reserves, and it also

has our richest source of uranium. That's right. That is one of

the reasons why they want Black Mesa. If you don't believe me,

if you follow the whole story of the partitioning of the Hopi

land and of the Dineh, which is on a joint-use land, you will

find that the fence that runs down the partition land runs along

the coal seam. You can speak to Katherine Smith about that,

right? She will tell you all about this fence that follows the

richest part of the coal that divides family from their sheep,

and family from family.

Now, fifty miles east of the Grand Canyon. Well, that's near Four

Corners. That's a famous place in United States history. Let's

talk about that. Four Corners does not touch Arizona, Four

Corners does not touch New Mexico, Four Corners does not touch

Colorado, Four Corners does not touch Utah. The land where the

Dineh live touches Arizona, it touches Utah, it touches New

Mexico, it touches Colorado. You see, when they were living in

this land, this was way before New Mexico and Arizona even

existed. So you see, they are the four corners of the world, not

these four states. That is something in history we have to

change right there. It doesn't take a savage mind to figure that

out, if New Mexico and Arizona were formed in 1910 and they've

been there since 1820, right?

That's where we get to the story of the First Miracle. The First

Miracle is, when I found out what was going on, I immediately

called a friend, and they said, "Speak to Thom White Wolf

Fassett." I said, "Okay." I called him up and then all of a

sudden, the World Council of Churches appears. And then all

these great organizations--the UN Commission on the Status of

Women appeared--and everybody is coming together. It's just

like, "This is a miracle." So, that's the First Miracle.

And remember, where is Black Mesa? It's fifty miles east of the

Grand Canyon. So, now, you're asking, "What's another important

reason about Black Mesa?" Well, the water; Black Mesa sits on

top of the cleanest aquifer in the United States right now.

Pristine water from a glacier age. It is being used to mix with

coal. Right now, they have the Salt River [Water Supply] Project

which is trying to funnel [the regions's surface] water all into

Southern Arizona. But everybody is refusing the water because it

is poisoned by all the mining. Nobody wants this water. The

cleanest water is in the Navajo aquifer. So that brings me to

the Second Miracle. I said, "I have to go visit the land, we

have to go see it." I went there and there I met Carlos Begay's

mother, Glenna. Here is [a photo of] Glenna Begay with her

sheep. First thing, she goes, "We have to go see Carlos." It's

at night; she gives me the car keys and I have not driven in five

years. So here we are in a pickup truck at night, driving

through the desert, the high desert plains with the beautiful

pi¤on trees, the juniper trees, the rabbits are going everywhere,

and I can see little deer eyes in the hills, and there are huge

gullies you have to drive around and the roads are really clayey

and slippery, and all of a sudden--because she doesn't speak

English and I don't speak Dineh--Glenna tells me she's forgotten

her purse. So, after driving ten miles through the desert, I

have to drive back, and we see the rabbits and the deer again,

dodging the little ravines and everything, and you know, that was

the Second Miracle. Because I knew if I survived that night, I

would be able to hear Katherine Smith give the most important

speech before the Many [sp?] Beads lawsuit that takes place

before the Ninth Circuit [U.S. Court] in California, in San

Francisco this coming Fall. This is going to be a showdown

between the federal government and the Dineh...one step below the

United States Supreme Court, the most important case coming.

Now, where is Black Mesa? It's fifty miles east of the Grand

Canyon. I'm just going to close with...you have to understand,

we've talked about the coal, we've talked about the cleanest

water. We've got a slurry line. A slurry line is how they ship

the coal to the power plant. They take the coal, then they take

the world's cleanest water, mix it up, put it in a slurry line,

and ship it two hundred and fifty miles across the desert to the

Mohave Power Plant, which burns it up and it puts sulfur in the

air which has lowered the visibility in the Grand Canyon by fifty

percent. There's a haze now over the Grand Canyon.

Now, you have to understand, what's so important about the Mohave

Power Plant? Well, it powers Las Vegas. Now do you understand

what the battle is all about? So, we come to the Third Miracle.

And that is, when I first came into this battle, I dreamed that

we would win when we could unite the Cherokee and the Navajo and

the Hud'nashone [sp?]. And I am just thinking to myself, we have

Thom White Wolf Fassett from the Hud'nashone, the Seneca; we have

the Dineh, they are at this table; I'm Cherokee. But that's not

the miracle. You see, the real miracle is that all of you are

here right now, and you see we have the UN coming to investigate.

So you see, it is happening.

And now, I want to introduce Carlos Begay of Black Mesa.

[to be continued in Part III]

[continued from Part II]

Carlos Begay

My name is Carlos Begay. I never thought that I would be working

for the mine for the last twenty-plus years, so then on the one

hand I am employed by them and on the other hand I'm fighting not

to give up our lands. So, I'm just stuck in between.

The reason why I'm here is for my parents. They are now elders

and every day they face the year 2000; they'll be facing eviction

from the lands. We need somehow to have their rights be

protected. And also for myself, during the 1974 passage of the

Public Law [on Relocation], we were all under the age of

eighteen, but now we are all grown and we have kids and I'm a

family man and now all the construction and improvement is being

freezed there. So I can't build a house near my elders' and

parents' home. And the Navajo Tribe has just passed an elders'

[inaudible], but I can't build a house near my mom's.

I just would like to thank you all for being here, and I wanted

to say that the relocation violates our religion. They are just

killing our people, and they're facing distress every day. So, I

just hope to see all of you in Black Mesa in early February.

Thank you.

- - - - - - -

VII. OPEN FORUM

Liberato C. Bautista

Gail Lerner, the representative of the World Council of Churches'

Commission for International Affairs, based here in New York,

will lead us in the open forum.

Gail Lerner

Thank you all for your presentations and for informing us. I

would be remiss, though, if I didn't say some words about why the

World Council of Churches is here. As many of you know, we're an

international non-governmental organization headquartered in

Geneva, Switzerland, and we are a fellowship of member churches

in over a hundred countries throughout the world.

Actually, the first representative here in New York to the United

Nations, was the person who drafted those words in the Universal

Declaration on Human Rights about religious freedom and belief

and conscience. We can share those anecdotes today, that an NGO

actually drafted paragraphs in UN text; many years ago, member

states would have denied that kind of information. Also, we have

in Geneva an indigenous peoples' program, but even prior to that,

when indigenous peoples came, almost thirty years ago or maybe

more, to the United Nations, wanting to be able to speak on their

own behalf in their own right, and to have their own

organizations represented here at the United Nations, what the

World Council could do was to help facilitate that very

bureaucratic process. We did facilitate those indigenous

organizations...when they first came, to have their own

consultative status at the United Nations, so they could

represent themselves and speak on their own behalf.

Now that we are here at the United Nations and now that we are

here with the Dineh people, and that a Special Rapporteur of the

United Nations on religious intolerance will be going to the

Southwest and staying one day on Black Mesa with the Dineh

people, we--churches, Methodists, World Council of Churches and

other NGO's--will also go along in a sense of bringing witness to

the Dineh people and to their struggle and to their wishes. Some

of you here are going to be part of that delegation, but others

will unfortunately not be able to go. So perhaps what we can do

now in the short period of time that we have is open up for

discussion what NGO's here can do at the United Nations to bring

more consciousness and awareness about the situation of the Dineh

people, not just regarding religious intolerance, but that there

are other issues that are also dealt with by the United Nations

where we could bring that to the forefront.

For those people who are not part of the international community,

but are here because you are part of US-based organizations,

perhaps people can come up with some ideas as to what could be

done, what kinds of actions could be brought forward regarding

the Dineh, our nation and the US government.

I wanted to say one thing: Avery, when he was speaking, he

mentioned that the Navajo people, when they went to World War II

went to defend their land, they used their language. I'm not

sure, for some of the people, they might not know the story. If

I understand it correctly, during World War II, Navajos were used

as radio communicators because the Japanese could not break the

code because they did not know the Navajo language. So, the

Navajos were not just defending their land, but actually the

United States and the people of the United States, in those

actions. I thought I would finish that story.

Let me open the discussion now....

Marcus Grundel [sp?]

I am Marcus Grundel from the Lutheran World Federation, and I

have a couple of questions, but more of points of clarification

that would be more to the benefit of NGO's that are here. For

Mr. Denny, can you make a clarification between "nation" and

"nation state", as with the Dineh nation, and the terms of

nationhood? What is meant by those terms?

Avery Denny

During the 1800's, our people were taken to POW [prisoner of war]

camps, and that's where we signed a peace treaty with the federal

government. And through that treaty, we were given sovereignty

as a nation, so that we would have our own council, our own

members, and our own education and philosophy would be practiced

within this sovereign nation. So that's where our sovereignty

and sovereign nation began; as indigenous people, that's where we

lived, and we practiced our own ways of life. We had our own

council and everything like that. But, within this nation [the

United States], there are a whole lot of organizations and

families that exist that are not documented. Different families

have their own rules and regulations, their own moral standards

according to the ceremonial ways that they have. So we have

standards that we live by; as to government or manmade law that

was given to us by the federal government, we have our own law.

According to that, we have sovereignty; that's our song and our

prayer and our belief. That's how we distinguish ourself as a

sovereign Indian indigenous people.

A lot of times, when we say that we are North American Indian or

Native American, a lot of people say, nowadays, "Well, I'm born

in America, so I'm a native American, too." So, we must stress

that we are indigenous people; long before the coming of the

Europeans, we were already here. And that's how we would like to

be known, as indigenous people, not really as a "nation" but as

an indigenous Navajo..."Dineh".

Marcus Grundel

So, even with this type of sovereignty, there is a connection

between the Dineh and the American government?

Avery Denny

Yes.

Marcus Grundel

Just one more question. The problems that we are talking about--

the social, economic and religious problems--how will self-

determination within the Dineh counteract these problems? So

that you have rights within your schools, for your form of

government...can you explain how that will help you, not to have

the American or state government be as involved.

Avery Denny

It is already being done. We have this campaign that Navajo

language and culture, that was being lost, is the medication to

heal us. So that's the role that we're taking, to our

educational facilities. For our Head Start program, we already

have a classroom that is mandated to teach only Navajo language,

and with that, that's how our classes will be designed and that's

how we will educate our youth and give them these types of

knowledge and educate them so that we can be independent. We are

going to focus on the mind of our generation; that's the route

that we are going to take. Which means that the money that we

receive from the federal government or whatever, we will put into

the minds of our generations until all the children, when they

grow, will make our own resources and write our own grants and

that's how we will grow again. So that is the way that we're

going to use this land that will be given back to us. That's how

we are going to focus in; that's our idea, that's the plan that

we have for ourselves.

Tina Belton [sp?]

I actually have two questions. I'm Tina Belton, of the Women's

International League for Peace and Freedom, in New York. My

first question was, if they're saying that that isn't your land,

where do they say you are from? Have they said you migrated from

somewhere? What is their rationale? Secondly, if because of the

coal and the water and the resources that are there is why the US

government wants the land, and I guess the Hopi might be getting

some money for this, I'm wondering if there are any folk who

aren't interested in the money but in keeping their land sacred,

and whether there are any Hopi who are standing with you to

create solidarity against the government?

Avery Denny

According to our stories and our belief as Dineh, our elders,

when they talk about the Creation stories, and when they talk

about the creation of these sacred mountains, they talk about it

as if it was last week or two weeks ago, as if they were present

at that time when they got involved in the creation of these

things. They talk about it as if they were witnessing it. So,

as long as those sacred mountains have been placed there, that's

how long--the billions of years it took--we have existed there.

And from that sacred mountain, yes, we went out to migrate. And

maybe when we moved on, we went to Florida or New York today, or

to Canada, maybe to Alaska or to Asia or down to Europe...there

wasn't any sign of the way to go, it was a two-way lane. That's

what we believe and we stand by it.

That's how we were called Dineh. When you say "Dineh", you mean

"of the people", we are the people, the children of this land.

That's what it means. When we got our identity--and our stories

and our songs tell us--there were two boys as twins that were

born, as the first-born and the second-born on this Mother Earth-

-when there was evil power in this world--they went to visit

their father the Sun, and when they journeyed to this place.

That's when they were given a bow and arrow as weapons.... They

have the indigenous mind. They look at the land and they value

and they cherish these sacred grounds and sacred sites and we

talk on behalf of the land. People that want to have our western

mind--I guess you could say "young mind"--they still work against

the traditional people.

So, these traditional elders--Navajos and Hopis--they fight

Peabody [Coal Company] because they don't want the contamination

to their land. So these elders support and visit one another,

they visit one another, they still talk with one another, they

trade with one another. So when you get to know these elders of

ours, they have a relationship with their elders, their kind.

The young people, they work against that; they have a political

mind, and that's the way it is today.

Tina Belton

I was wondering, if the government wants these results and if

they have been giving money to Hopis, are there any who are

rejecting the money and standing with you in solidarity.

Katherine Smith

The Hopi get two pay[ments]: one from the Navajo tribe for the

HPL and one from Washington, D.C.

Marsha Monestersky

I'll add a little bit briefly to give some of the background of

the conspiracies that have gone on, because there has been a

concerted effort by the United States government over many years,

to make this appear to be a very complicated issue, and when

people hear it, they say, "We don't know how to help. We

sympathize and we feel really bad." The United States government

expert came to the United Nations during the Commission on

Sustainable Development to try to counter the people on the

Indigenous Forum that were saying that the Dineh people were

going to be evicted from their land. And he stood up and he

said, "Isn't it sad? But the United States government had to

intervene. It is just so sad."

And I was able to counter him, because that's the truth that can

happen. Indigenous people, when they attend these forums in the

United States government, can actually counter the lies and the

propaganda that the governments put out, because the truth of the

situation that is backed up in thousands of pages of

documentation is actually very simple: The United States

government is required to generate energy, but what is the cost

for the energy that gets generated?

It all started with a person by the name of John S. Boyden who

worked for the Department of the Interior for ten years before he

became legal counsel for the Hopi Tribal Council, also

simultaneously being an attorney for Peabody Coal Company. He

negotiated the mineral leases for the Black Mesa mine. He was

also the drafter of the Relocation Act. It's a conflict of

interest in any court. In 1974, the Washington Post published an

article, "Whose Home on the Range?", that basically said, "If you

want to find out who's running the Hopi Tribal Council, you could

call the Mormons in Salt Lake City [Utah], of which John S.

Boyden was a high priest.

If you wanted to see a livestock roundup, rather than a range war

that didn't exist between the traditional Dineh and Hopi, you

could call the public relations firm, Evans and Associates, which

was a mining consortium of twenty-three mining and utilities

companies that were looking at the Four Corners area to generate

energy for most of the Southwest. The reality of the situation

is, an estimated twenty to fifty billion tons of high-grade coal

to burn. The Mohave generating stations and the Four Corners

power plants were purposely exempted by the United States

government from all National Environmental Policy Act and clean

air regulations. The Mohave generating station is the last major

stationary point source of pollution creating the visibility and

the haze at the Grand Canyon. It still doesn't have any

regulations to control particulate matter, and it's particularly

bad because it burns moistured coal that comes from a slurry line

because it is mixed with water from the Ice Age.

The travesty of justice that's happened was to create energy, and

the Dineh people and the traditional Hopi people wouldn't have

allowed these mineral resources to be extracted from their land,

because they believe that mining is the rape of their Mother.

And the traditional Hopi brought a case that went up to the

Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court rejected it because John S.

Boyden, who was the counsel for the Hopi tribe, stated that there

was sovereignty by the Tribal Council and the traditional Hopi

could not do anything to go against the sovereignty of the Tribal

Council.

There is no land dispute between the two traditional Dineh and

the Hopi people. It is a manufactured land dispute between two

tribal councils that are fighting over how much coal mining

revenues they are going to get, because the mining revenues went

up from forty-five million dollars a year to each of the Tribal

Councils from Peabody to sixty-five million dollars. And that's

what it's about.

And the people that are living in the mining permit area don't

get one penny, but people like an elder like Attitee [sp?] Lake

had a sacred shrine bulldozed recently and two human remains

unearthed--on Anasazi and one Navajo. Anzani [sp?] Whitehair

walked twenty-five miles to avoid her livestock being confiscated

because the United States government under the Bureau of Indian

Affairs wanted to confiscate their livestock, and she ran out of

water half way. Her home was bulldozed one week after moving to

her old home at the Peabody mine site. And that's what the

battle is about. And at what cost on the human level? And how

can you, as NGO's help to stop these violations?

Paul Sherbow [sp?]

I'm Paul Sherbow from the Shintao [sp?] Foundation. I've heard

about the problem previously from some old newspaper accounts and

from something on television that portrayed it as a land dispute,

as you said is probably manufactured. But just let me know, the

land that you are talking about right now, who was that given to

and at what time? Was that given to the Hopi at a certain time;

were there Navajos living on it and that was an accepted

situation at that time? I understand from the documentary that

within the Tribal Council that a majority of people had voted to

permit Peabody to come in and mine--is that the situation--and

that the traditional elders resist that, object to that? If

that's the case and the land was actually given to the Hopi

Council and that it admitted the mining company in, and the

Supreme Court rejected it on those grounds, then what is your

strategy for fighting that in court? It seems to me that if you

fight it on the grounds of religious freedom, then that's not

really going to the issue. That's a way in, but I don't see how

that's going to protect people living on the land as opposed to

visiting religious shrines. There should be another way in

there, so I'd just like to ask some more of that background and

also what is your strategy of meeting that in court?

Avery Denny

I will always go according to our ceremonial belief and our

religious right as human beings, as indigenous people, and we see

and we say that and we believe that every inch of this land that

we are talking about is sacred to us because that's our Mother

and that's our Father and that's where we live. That's our

point, you know. This is our land. So we will fight for that.

I don't know what the government says about who it belongs to,

but the way we see it, we don't own any of this land, we belong

to the land. We belong to the Mother Earth, we are the

children...and we have every right to live there. That's our

point and that's what we are going to use: our ceremonial and

religious belief.

Marsha Monastersky

One of the things that we are hoping to do with Mr. [Abdelfattah]

Amor, guided by the medicine people and the grandmothers who herd

the sheep and try to survive when their livestock keeps getting

reduced to where they can't survive any longer, is to demonstrate

that relocation violates Dineh religion which is land-based and

site-specific, and that not only are there sacred shrines, but

there are offering places everywhere, and every square inch

within Dineh-ka [sp?] is sacred and needs to be protected. As

NGO's, maybe you can help us to find the resources so that we can

be able to obtain the lawyers that we need to protect the people

and their land.

Katherine Smith

[lifting up and explaining her elaborate, hand-drawn tapestry]

This is a Lady Mountain: a mountain that looks like a lady.

[Next to it,] this is a man. So, this is the Earth, the whole

thing. This is the river, and these are the six sacred

mountains. And we traditional people, we have a bundle of this

six sacred mountains. You'll see in "Broken Rainbow" that I am

holding something up; that's the six sacred bundles. [pointing]

This is their home, so we are talking about this place here.

This is the lady, and the government stole all this body now.

This red [partition] line here is where the government stole it

and there is a line on this man, too. This lady, the body is the

water that keeps the plants, the Earth and all the trees. Up

here [pointing to the crown of the head], you can see your hair

here? Right here, that's for the tornadoes and hurricanes, the

lady's hair knots. At the Grand Canyon, where they called the

Rainbow Bridge, is the lady's hair knots. With that man, it is

the same, too. The red line [crosses over] the lady's body of

the world. Black Mesa is the lady's liver, so the company they

take out the liver now.

- - - - - - -

Thom White Wolf Fassett

I just want to add that it is critically important for NGO's and

organizations who have a voice and visibility to be aware of the

issues and to vocalize them and to articulate them and to talk

about them from the standpoint of justice. The illustration of

the Dineh are critical to the discussions because they are among

the best illustration of what is happening today.

Now, we can become involved in technical discussions about issues

of sovereignty, but there is not an indigenous nation in the

United States of America who does not understand sovereignty as

an issue of their own independence within a certain context.

Now, I know the United States government has been helping define

that context, and whereas at the beginning of time, in 1754 at

Fort Orange, where the men--in this case, unfortunately, who were

later to write the Bill of Rights and the Constitution--met with

the Six Nations People in Fort Orange--which is now Albany, New

York--I know that there was an understanding that these people

were talking nation-to-nation. Now, the federal government will

tell us that all the treaties which the government enacted with

the native nations of the United States of America are still

intact except those which have been abrogated by the United

States of America, and that's most of them.

So what we're dealing with here is not simply related to the

Dineh, it is related to all the indigenous people in this

country. If you have watched some of the historical events

unwinding around this country, there was a very similar situation

in Northern Cheyenne country, of the largest deposit of low-

sulfur coal in the United States. The elders, the traditional

people of the nation, came to Pennsylvania to look at the coal

fields and they went back home and said, "We will not allow

Peabody Coal Company to scar the breast of our Mother Earth."

Now, however, it is unfortunate but true fact that in Indian

country today, we have the traditional keepers of the spiritual

responsibilities and we have the IRA governments, the Indian

Reorganizational Act governments of 1924 who are yielding

themselves and their sovereignty and power to the United States

government. And so there is a basic conflict afoot in the land

and has been since the early part of this century, related to

these issues. The electeds are very interested in economic

development. I was at Window Rock the very week that the Indian

nations came together and said, "No more will the United States

government bargain on our behalf with energy corporations of this

country; we're going to form our own "OPEC", and it became

"CERT", the Coalition of Energy Resource Tribes. They then began

negotiating themselves with energy corporations so that they

could make some money, but it still meant selling the Earth,

selling the energy.

Many people don't remember that when the US Department of Energy

was formed, those of us who were then in Washington fought some

of the regulations unmercifully because they included a provision

that allowed the federal government to exercise marshall law in

Indian territories should the sources of energy be threatened.

So you see how critical these issues are. When we talk about

uranium, native peoples own upwards of ninety percent of

America's uranium, and most of it is at the Dineh nation. And we

can talk about oil and shale and coal and all the rest; timber

resources. So this is not simply Dineh; we are talking about

indigenous peoples, and by implication, if you want to talk about

clearcutting of timber in Belize, if you want to talk about the

loss of a hundred acres an hour in Indonesian countries of East

Timor or West Papua, we have perfect parallels. And these things

are going unmercifully at a tremendous speed today.

Who but people like us should be dealing with these issues?

We're all very, very overwhelmed with the agenda before us,

because it's not only this. We have that and the other and

twenty other things we are trying to address, but if you were

privileged as I was, to participate in the Copenhagen meeting--

the summit on social development--we begin to understand how all

of these issues are interdependent and you cannot isolate one

thing from the other. You cannot isolate employment, you cannot

isolate women's issues, you cannot isolate immigration or

refugees or children or indigenous peoples or natural resources

or whatever, because they are all part of the same thing....

- - - - - - -

Stuart Leiderman

I'm Stuart Leiderman. I'm a doctoral student, but for many years

have been an environmental and health scientist. Recently, my

work begins to fit this whole issue that I've known about for

many years: I have relatives in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area

and my uncles were famous lawyers and judges there and perhaps

their families now will be able to enter this, but I have a

contribution to make that perhaps will fit both the UN trip and

investigation but also to help you see that there is an entire

scientific community that is not represented here. And I don't

know what non-governmental organization there is that represents

the scientific community for the United Nations, but I urge you

to begin to seek them out and, as best as I can, I would do my

part.

Recently, I connected the conditions at Black Mesa with

conditions at perhaps a hundred other places in the world where

there are environmental refugees coming from energy development

projects, and I brought a copy of my paper here for you to

circulate and look through. I found that there are common

symptoms and conditions, and I hope that you and the visitors

that go there will look for these and substantiate these because

I believe that they are valid.

I looked at these from the point of view of the people

themselves--the victims and the refugees and the people who

ultimately have to leave because of energy development, and on

the other hand, what I call the "perpetrators" who are the ones

who are either government, or the people there, or the miners and

so on. Under the refugees, the symptoms include that they have

the predicament of not yet fleeing, but feeling as if they were

refugees in their own homeland, they are suffering from earlier

exploitation, they have what I call an unlucky coexistence with

nature that is common throughout the world in development

projects, there is the sacredness of homeland, they are victims

of collateral damage that happens in the course of seeking and

using this energy, there is inadequate relocation, they are

victims of racism, they express feelings of inseparability from

their homeland, their health is threatened, there is a feeling of

fatalism where it is very difficult for them to describe what is

the future going to be like, the personal space of the people is

invaded, they are always seeking universal human rights, they are

victims of double standards, they are subject to extreme impacts,

they are suffering cultural threats, their spirit of resistance

for survival continues despite the problems they are

experiencing, they are always appealing for help, they are

experiencing damage beyond repair--the other part of my work

concerns ecological restoration, and what would permit people to

return--they are subjected to military repression, the losses go

far beyond economic losses, they are self-sacrificing, they are

never compensated sufficiently for their sacrifice, there is

discord from their displacement, their livelihoods are destroyed,

there is a feeling of constant loss and sadness, there is an

unknown fate that they face, and a betrayed trust.

Now there is a similar kind of set of warning signs on the

perpetrators side. I won't read those now, but I think that the

story of Black Mesa is the beginning story for millions of

environmental refugees, not just for indigenous people but people

who from civilized worlds are experiencing in common. The

scientific community has access to this information. I have just

begun to put this together in my own mind as a way of having

something to give. There's more that we can give and I hope that

we and others will be welcomed and posed questions--difficult

questions--about the kinds of decisions that need to be made to

re-establish harmony. It is not sufficient to look for symptoms,

and whoever visits will maybe see signs of intolerance of all

kinds, but not necessarily who is receiving it and who is giving

it.

Only when you are able to show this--and maybe we can help find

them--will people know what kind of decisions to make. That's

basically what's going to have to happen in the future. Our

decisions will be made either to leave things alone or to repair

things or to move things or to bring things back. Decisions will

have to be made, and that's the kind of thing that millions of

people in the scientific world throughout all countries will

respond to if you ask them.... Thank you very much.

[to be continued in Part IV]
This is the last part of the transcription. The entire transcription is on my

website, The Activist Page. The specific URL will be

http://www.theofficenet.com/~redorman/unnynav.txt

Maria Arias-Zeballos

My name is Maria Arias and I represent the Working Group on Women

and the Environment in the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

I have been involved with the group of the Dineh nation with

Marsha for about four years, and we through the working group

have been trying to give visibility to their cause. In essence,

we started to work in the living room of my apartment, the Dineh

people sleeping on the floor, and babies all over. Up to now,

that it is formally by its own and to me, in a sense, I see that

there has been progress, because from nothing they now have their

own support of other NGO's and they have been able to contact the

Commission on Human Rights, etc.

When we started three or four years ago, before going to China

with the Women's conference [inaudible]; as I started to

understand their struggles, one of the first issues that came to

mind was what we wrote in the first statements. That was that

there seems to be a very apparent difference between the

traditional groups and the other groups, and I did not understand

up to today and would still like some clarification, to

understand very clearly about to what extent the non-traditional

groups feel that they are truly representative of indigenous

groups. Up to what extent do they consider themselves that they

truly have the voice of the indigenous groups? And I think that

that is a key issue.

Now, for that to happen, something will have to happen, and as

Stuart said, decisions have to be made. And it seems that one of

the most clear decisions that have to be made here is also that

the traditional groups of all the nations--I don't know how many

nations there are in the United States or overseas--come together

in some kind of statement that says, "We abide by these

principles," whichever their principles are. But it should be

some kind of consensus of statements of your prophesies or

whatever principles you live from. And, if at some point you

feel that the non-traditional groups are no longer representing

those principles, then decisions have to be made, I think, there

will have to be a clear understanding that, "They are no longer

representing us." And I think that by doing that, you will be

making enemies, obviously, but you will also be making friends.

And the friends will be the NGO's of the world, the scientific

community and all those who would like to keep supporting your

cause with more clarity. Because we are still the civilized

world and we are confused about the complexity of what has taken

place. There is confusion here, and we want to support you, but

I think that we have to really understand more what has happened

historically, and also what is happening between nations, if it's

really one-hundred percent real that the Hopi nation, the Hopi

traditional nation supports entirely your cause. I think that,

from my perspective, would be very nice to see that the Hopis

really are supporting the Navajos traditional cause, and from

then we can start with the other traditional groups, saying, "We

support this." To me, that would be the strategy.

Now, knowing now a little bit more about the complexities of the

UN, we understand the difficulties that we are facing, and that

is that the issues are still treated under difference commissions

and even under different sectors, and so we still have to work in

a very divided way, and not operating in a holistic way as we

would like to. So this is why, perhaps when someone asked today,

"Why are using the strategy of bringing on the Commission

[rapporteur] on religious intolerance when this certainly goes

beyond?" well, he does not understand the effort that has been

going on up to now, for four years, until we finally achieved the

attention of one of the rapporteurs, and I think that is only the

tip of the iceberg, hopefully.

But for this to continue, I think that from my point of view, I

think that the best strategy would be as I suggested many times

to Marsha and to William Comanda [sp?] of the Algonquin nation,

to see if there will be a dialogue among the traditional peoples

of the Indian nations and bringing up some kind of consensus.

- - - - - - -

Avery Denny

A lot of our children go to school and learn the Western culture.

So, somebody like Katherine here and like my mother and my

father, they have this language barrier, communications barrier.

So that divides us, the ability to sit down with our elders and

communicate with them, to share the stories and the knowledge and

to carry on some of the traditional knowledge. So there is less

communication.

Our elders, they live in a solid world, and their children go off

to work, off to school. These elderly Navajo, they stay home,

they tend to their land, their sheep and the way of their life,

and others go to school. So, that divides them, that's what it

is as a reality.

Maria Arias

But do you think that your children will abide by you with these

common principles if they had the chance to have meetings some of

yourselves? as a nation?

Avery Denny

As a nation, the whole Navajo nation has come to realize [their

situation]. There was a survey was done from a big university

that told us that we have economic and health problems, social

problems, all these problems that exist on Navajo land. So the

recommendation was, "Your people are sick, you have lost your

identity, you are losing your language; the education we have

tried to give to you is the wrong medicine. [Instead,] the

remedy will be your own culture, your own history, your own

identity if you can still get it back into you. Those are the

ingredients that you want." So we are taking that route. We

have a vision; we say that the year 2000, we will go all this

way. That's like a mission, that's like a goal that we have for

our young generation, to set down with your children. We are

going to go from the grassroots area, we will come from the top.

The elders are going to come and set down and communicate and

share our knowledge. That's the way we're going to go; that's

the plan.

- - - - - - -

Gail Lerner

For those of us who are in the United Nations NGO community,

beginning February 10th is the Commission for Social Development.

That's the commission that does the follow-up to the world summit

for social development. A number of us will be there and we'll

have an ecumenical delegation, but there are others that will be

there as well. Maybe in our caucuses and our workshops we can

think together beforehand or during those two weeks how we can

bring some of the issues that the Dineh nation have brought to

us, to the Commission for Social Development.

But also, you mentioned, Maria, that you started working together

before going to Beijing; well, right after the Commission for

Social Development is the Commission on the Status of Women, and

then in April we have again Sustainable Development and we have

the second international tribunal. So, I believe for those of us

who are working in this community, anyway, in the next three or

four months, we can do some good work.

Maria Arias-Zeballos

The Commission on the Status of Women will deal in March with the

issue of women and violence. That seems a very relevant issue

for this particular group....

Gail Lerner

That being said, I think we should bring this part of our meeting

to a close.

Avery Denny

Can I just say thank you to each and every one of you. Thank you

for your attention and your understanding. We appreciate it.

[?] Blakely

I have a question before you conclude. I'm Dr. Blakely, I'm the

Community Mayor of Harlem and it [the Dineh story ?] was brought

to the Harlem community--Harlem Women International--by Margaret

[?] at the last session for the Commission of the Status of

Women. And we made it sure that she got into the UN by making

sure that a pass was issued to her to bring the issues. That's

what Harlem has done. And also being a part of the committee for

human rights--I'm out of the Caucus on Human Rights and the Peace

Caucus of the International People's Tribunal--and pushing Marsha

[Monastersky] to speak at the United Nations, articulating the

issues which she did extremely well from some of the standing

committees that are at the United Nations--we're talking about

the official bodies the United Nations--not just to the NGO's.

Right now, we are talking about having a meeting or forum or

discussion. Back in Arizona, I served in Arizona under

[President] Jimmy Carter, for the International Year of the

Child. So I've been in Arizona, and we were at a hearing. I

would join you here, saying, out of that hearing with many of the

indigenous [people], what happened with that report? and how

[can] that report, which has been done out of the White House for

the International Child, be brought up now...? I think that it

needs to be revisited as part of the process of what you're doing

here.

Gail Lerner

Thank you. Thank you all.