Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

We the five-fingered beings are related to the four-legged, the winged beings, the spiritual beings, Father Sky, Mother Earth, and nature. We are all relatives. We cannot leave our relatives behind.
-- Betty Tso, Traditional Navajo

In our traditional tongue, there is no word for relocation. To relocate is to move away and disappear.
-- Pauline Whitesinger, Big Mountain Elder

With all the talk of alternative fuel sources and energy-efficient light bulbs you hear today, 55 percent of our nation's electricity is still generated by the burning of coal. This requires that tens of millions of tons of coal be extracted from the Earth each year. The toxic fallout from coal burning is well known to most, but largely unknown is that the price being paid for extracting this coal is the virtual genocide of approximately 10,000 Navajo people.

Environmentalists, politicians, scholars, new age speakers and theologians will often speak of the power and wisdom of the native peoples of North America. Their reverence for life, connection to the Earth and appreciation of the web of life are foundational concepts in many philosophies. Yet while many non-Native American people speak of that wisdom from comfortable settings, the United States government continues to implement its final solution for some of the last remaining original inhabitants of this land.

By February 2000, the U.S. government plans to complete the forced relocation of the Navajo, known as Dineh in their native tongue, who remain at a site in Arizona that they have inhabited since the U.S. Army tried to wipe them all out in 1863. The relocation site is a desolate piece of land downstream from the location of the nation's worst nuclear waste disaster in 1979 and is unfit for humans or animals.

This relocation began by order of President Gerald Ford in 1974, when he signed Public Law 93531 while on a skiing trip. Nearly 12,000 Dineh have been forcibly moved from their tribal land since then and the impacts have been catastrophic for their people. President Bill Clinton imposed the new deadline when he signed Public Law Public Law 104-301 in 1996.

Twenty five percent of the first group that was moved in 1980 died within six months of arrival on the new site. Since then, the remaining population has been ravaged by birth defects from the uranium mine waste spill in 1979 and by deep cultural wounds. The native plants vital to the religious ceremonies of the Dineh do not grow at the relocation site. Their animals die from radiation poisoning. Their bond with Mother Earth, they believe, has been broken. To the Dineh, to relocate from the land of their birth is to disappear.

The nearly 3,000 Dineh who have refused relocation are mostly elders. The U.S. government is now taking extreme measures to force them from their homes.

This relocation is the result of the same plague that is destroying us all from the inside out - the endless extraction of resources from the Earth and the greed of those that control the money, property and power in this country.

The U.S. wants the Dineh out of the area around Big Mountain, Arizona, the site of a massive coal strip mine operated by the Peabody Western Coal Company since the 1960's. Peabody, owned by a British company, pays the Navajo and Hopi Tribal councils 12 cents per ton of coal, which they sell for $22 per ton in the marketplace. They mine 12 million tons of coal per year.

In addition to the coal extracted, one-third of all uranium mined in the U.S. has come from Dineh land. The nation's largest power plant was built adjacent to the site. This plant generates so much pollution from the burning of coal that Apollo astronauts saw the toxic clouds it emanates from the Moon. It is the largest single point source of greenhouse gases in North America. Many Native Americans who worked in the uranium mines have suffered from radiation sickness and many children suffer from birth defects.

In an effort to force out those who remain on the land, a U.S. court ordered that the Dineh cannot repair their homes or build new ones, denied them access to fresh water, and confiscated their livestock upon which they depend. Firewood is confiscated in winter, and law enforcement officials harass and threaten them with eviction and jail sentences. Taking the livestock from these elderly people is tantamount to issuing a death sentence.

These government sponsored flagrant civil and human rights abuses are inexcusable. Congress and the President must be told that the American people will not tolerate this kind of behavior. This level of harassment and violation of basic human rights would never be tolerated in any U.S. city.

Of course, we must remember that the insane push to extract resources from the Earth at all costs is due to the demands that business, industry and we as individuals make. If we dramatically reduce our energy needs and dependence, then the need to extract resources would diminish as well.

The United States was built on a legacy of murder and abuse of the original inhabitants of this land. We cannot carry that legacy into the future and begin the new millennium with more blood on our hands.

[Jackie Giuliano, is a writer and a Professor of Environmental Studies, can be found in Venice, California, thinking about all the power his computer uses and how that has impacted the Dineh. Please send thoughts and comments to email: jackie@healingourworld.com]

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