STUDENT JOURNALIST

Fighting Genocide at Black Mesa
by Sera Bilezikyan

I’m miles from a paved road or a telephone; at times even from another soul who speaks English. The sun is hot and the workdays long. There is intense surveillance and harassment by the authorities. I’m between a fierce resistance and an ancient indigenous culture. And I’m not in Chiapas. I’m not even in another country for that matter. I am deep in the desert of Black Mesa, AZ, in the Navajo Nation, a sacred yet tense area commonly called “Big Mountain,” as a supporter to the community resisting relocation.

In 1863, the US government dispatched Kit Carson to subdue the Navajo, whose farming lifestyle stood in the way of white settlement. He engaged in a “scorched-earth” policy of killing livestock and destroying homes. Eventually over 8,500 Navajos were captured and forced to march 300 miles to Fort Sumner, NM, the first “reservation” in America, where many of the Navajo died. Eventually they were allowed to return to “freedom” in the form of a larger reservation centered around the Big Mountain area only to now face the largest forced relocation of any racial group since the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

In 1974, the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act was passed, masterminded by Arizona Republican Barry Goldwater, and authored by self-described “reformer,” John McCain. Claiming it would finally settle a long-standing “land dispute” between the Dine and the Hopi tribes, the settlement called for the relocation of over 10,000 Dine but less than 100 Hopi.

One thing that struck me at Black Mesa was the contrast between being both removed from and deeply centered within corporate capitalist society. There were no Starbucks on every corner, yet the entire Dine culture, despite its existence outside of such goods, is being swallowed by them. It is hardly a coincidence that the “land dispute” is over land that happens to sit on top of the largest unstripped coal deposit left in the country.

In 1996, McCain drafted an “Accommodation Agreement,” which offered benefits to the Dine for relocation or an option to remain on the land for up to 75 years—but with reduced livestock grazing rights, no chance to pass on land to families, and subservience to the Hopi tribal government. McCain gave the Dine people two choices: sign the agreement or be forcibly evicted from the land in four years.

There are currently several hundred Dine who refuse to sign the Agreement and resist relocation. The resisters, as well as supporters like me, are subject to constant harassment and intimidation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs police, often in the form of livestock impoundment. This is particularly devastating because the livelihood of the Dine people depends on sheep and goats.

Relocation is genocide to the Dine people as their religion and spirituality is site-specific.They have looked to the United Nations and other human and indigenous rights groups for help; in fact, the situation was the target of the first UN investigation on human rights violations on US soil in the country’s history.

Although it has been a few months since I left, the words of Dine elder Pauline Whitesinger continually echo in my head: “There is no word in the Dine language for relocation. To relocate is to disappear forever and never to be seen again.” #

The author is a student at Evergreen College in Washington. Excerpted from Punk Planet, Nov./Dec. ‘00.  

Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel: (212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2001.